Gauthier Marchais is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies. His research centres on the effects of violent conflict on societies, with a particular focus on education. He is part of the Governance cluster at IDS.
Gauthier’s research combines several disciplinary approaches to study the impact of violent conflict and intersecting crises on societies. At IDS, he convenes two MA teaching modules and supervises MA and PhD theses.
Gauthier’s research focuses on education in crisis and conflict-affected contexts. He is the principal investigator of the EU funded research project entitled ‘The Drivers of Teacher Wellbeing and Retention in Contexts of Protracted Violence and Displacement’, and the co-Principal Investigator (with Professor Samuel Matabishi, ISP Bukavu) of the GPE-KIX funded project entitled ‘Scaling the Impact of a Pre-Service Teacher Training Module for Teachers in Violent Conflict’.
Gauthier previously led the REALISE and BRICE research projects. The main outputs can be found in this report on teacher wellbeing in conflict-affected contexts (see summary), and articles on the causes of violence against teachers in conflict-affected contexts, and the mental health toll of violence on teachers. Gauthier also co-authored a book on Education and Resilience in Crisis, which won the Jackie Kirk Outstanding Book Award of the Comparative and International Education Society.
Gauthier is interested in the wider question of social and institutional transformation during war. He has worked on: 1) the communal dynamics of armed mobilization and social transformation (through his PhD, see this working paper on the social origins of militias); 2) Historical continuities in violent conflict, see paper on taxation, stateness and armed groups in DRC, and working paper on wartime indirect rule), 3) the environmental impact of violent conflict, see Working Paper on the impact of armed groups on fishing sector in the Philippines, and article on conservation in violent frontiers; 4) methodologies to study violent conflict, for example on approaches to reporting violence.
Gauthier has also written about race in society and research. He published a book in French on whiteness in contemporary society, Le Deni Blanc: Penser autrement la question raciale, and wrote about race and contemporary academic research on the African continent, in an article, and blog. He also contributed to a documentary on this question, Congo Calling, directed by Stephan Hilpert, which won the audience prize at the Max Ophüls Preis film festival.
He is a scientific advisor at Marakuja Kivu Research, a non-profit organization specialized in research in conflict-affected areas, based in Goma, DRC.
