Dr Suzanne Francis | University of Chester

Associate Professor of Conflict Transformation & Peace Studies; Programme Leader, Global Affairs, Politics and International Relations

Dr Suzanne Francis is an Associate Professor in Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies at the University of Chester. She has worked in academia on three continents during the last two decades, and in the Global South most recently at the University of KwaZulu-Natal where she served as an Academic Leader for the School of Social Sciences. She has contributed to multiple practitioner and high-level forums as a specialist advisor in understanding conflict and ways to build peace, contributing to international peace dialogues as a specialist in conflict transformation, providing training and workshops to high-level professionals; and also in research and practice-based international development. In addition, she has extensive undergraduate teaching and postgraduate supervision experience, and has supervised 24 PhD dissertations to completion. She is also a keen photographer, particularly in conflict and its aftermath. Her research is fieldwork, archival and practice-based particularly in conflict zones, and includes research on violence, conflict transformation; restitutive, reconciliatory and redistributive justice; postcolonial theory; marginalised peoples and indigeneity; and international and radical political economy.

Suzanne Francis has taught at Universities on three continents over the last two decades. She was twice the recipient of a University Distinguished Teaching Award and also received a Research-Informed Teaching Award. She was the recipient of a distinguished TAU Fellowship through the international body HELTASA. She has developed seven undergraduate degree programmes and four postgraduate degree programmes and designed over 50 modules. She also supervises undergraduate and postgraduate students, and is particularly interested in supervising fieldwork-based dissertations using Global South epistemologies, theories and concepts. She has supervised 24 PhD dissertations to completion. She has co-led the development of the new degree in Global Affairs, Politics and International Relations, available to students in September 2025. She currently teaches SO6901 - Africa in the World... and the World in Africa; SO5907 - Conflict, Security and Peace-Building; SO5703 - Global Politics and International Relations; and she contributes to SO6051 - International Political Economy; SO5906 - International Trade, Power and Diplomacy; and SO4704 - Thinking About Politics and International Relations. She also supervises undergraduate and PhD dissertations and has a particular interest in decolonising higher education and leads a working group in this area.

Suzanne's research is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and archival work in conflict zones across Africa, and includes research on violence, conflict and peace, the colonial international order and decolonising international relations; conflict transformation; restitutive, reconciliatory and redistributive justice; postcolonial theory; marginalised peoples and indigeneity; international and radical political economy; and decolonising higher education. She has also worked as an independent consultant in both conflict-peace dialogues and international development, for which she has carried out multiple research projects and served in a specialist advisory capacity, also providing workshops and training. She is currently working with a team-based long-term United Nations partner to produce a conflict-predictive peace tool for use across the Global South; and on understanding conflict in central Africa.

Suzanne has held a number of research grants. She currently also serves as the Chair of the Departmental Research Committee; a member of the Research Ethics Committee; and as Faculty Representative on the Faculty Research Committee. She has a particular interest in developmental approaches to developing researchers and also serves as a research mentor for staff.

Books, reviews, journals

Suzanne has produced more than 20 publications in the form of internationally peer-reviewed single authored, co-authored and collaborative monographs and books, and journal articles and, in addition to these, has worked on a variety of applied research publications for international social and government agencies across the Global North and Global South.

A few of these include:

Institutionalizing Elites (Brill: Leiden and Boston, 2011)
Selected Themes in African Political Conflict and Stability (Springer: New York, 2014)
The Edge of the Periphery: Situating the ≠Khomani San of the Southern Kalahari in the Political Economy of Southern Africa (African Identities, 2016)
Counter-Trafficking Governance in South Africa. (Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 2017)
Oil Corrupts Elections: The Political Economy of Vote Buying in Nigeria (African Studies Quarterly, 2015)
Elite Discourses on Human Trafficking: Media Waves and Moral Panicking (Strategic Review for Southern Africa, 2014)
Drivers of Nuclear Proliferation: South Africa’s incentives and constraints (Journal for African History, 2014)
Representation and Misrepresentation: San regional advocacy and the Global imagery (Critical Arts, 2010)
Gender, Numbers and Substance: The “Politics of Presence” and Parliamentary Women in KwaZulu-Natal (Transformation, 2010)
Political Violence and Conflict Transformation: The African National Congress - Inkatha Freedom Party Peace Process in KwaZulu-Natal (Gandhi Marg, 2010)
The IFP Campaign: ‘Indlovu ayisindwa kawbaphambili!’ in Southall, R. & Daniel, J. South African Election (Jacana, Johannesburg, 2010)

Current Research 2017-2018

“Take Me to Your Leader!” The Politics and Ethics of Fieldwork in Post-Conflict States (journal article).

The Postcolonial Burden: Land, Politics and Culture in the Political Economy of the Southern Kalahari (book/monograph).

The Political Economy of Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR): Challenges to a sustainable peace.

Pedagogies of the PhD: Transforming the mid-point through the principles of Space, Access and Critical Consciousness (journal article).

Re-living, Remembering and “Developing” Agendas? The ≠Khomani San Living Museum and the struggles to re-claim the past (journal article).

Humanity, Expectations, Access and Transformation (HEAT): Revisiting Higher Education in a Postcolonial Context (journal article).

PhD: University of KwaZulu-Natal

Memberships

TAU Fellow: HELTASA
Fellow: HEA