Xavier Mathieu

Xavier Mathieu is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sheffield, School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations. He joined in 2023 after previous positions at the University of Liverpool, Aston University, and as a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research in Germany. He holds a PhD from the University of Sheffield and an MA in International Relations from Sciences Po Bordeaux.

His research examines violence and French coloniality, particularly terrorism and anti-terrorism in colonial/post-colonial contexts, sovereignty concepts, and international interventions. His current project analyzes violence through embodied practices in colonial/post-colonial settings, investigating how bodies build racial hierarchies and resist colonial power structures.

Mathieu's publications focus on disaster dynamics, risk modeling, and optimization methods applied to political contexts. His methodological approaches integrate social, geospatial, and computational perspectives to understand complex political systems.