Francois is a doctoral candidate in Politics at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, specialising in the politics of Sub-Saharan Africa, conflict, humanitarian crises, and the politics of food (in)security and climate change, with a specific focus on the central and eastern African regions.
François has extensive experience in Africa, with a background in both diplomatic and humanitarian sectors. He has served as a consultant for organisations such as Doctors Without Borders, the International Crisis Group, the World Food Programme of the United Nations, and the Global Network Against Food Crises. François actively contributed to the 2023 Hunger Hotspots report of the United Nations and participated in the 2023 joint FAO/WFP updates presented to the United Nations Security Council on food security in countries with conflict situations.
His doctoral research focuses on the lasting influence of nationalism in Africa. Francois's DPhil focuses on South Sudan, and the attempt by Equatorian elites to construct a competing nationalist project in a political landscape dominated by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.
François holds a BSc in Political Science (UCLouvain, Belgium), a Bachelor of Laws (UCLouvain, Belgium), a MPhil in International Relations (UCLouvain, Belgium) and a MSc in African Studies with distinction from the University of Oxford, where he also received the African Studies Centre Prize for excellent dissertation.
Publications
- Sennesael, F. and Verhoeven, H. (2024). "Breaking from the past? Environmental narratives, logics of power, and the (re)production of food insecurity in South Sudan", Disasters
- Sennesael, F. (2023). "Second-Generation Liberation Wars: Rethinking colonialism in Iraqi Kurdistan and Southern Sudan", Yaniv Voller, Cambridge University Press. International Review of Social History, 68/1, pp.185-188
- Sennesael, F. & Verhoeven, H. (2022). "Energy and Water for Sovereignty: South Sudan's Regional Diplomacy and the Geopolitics of the Nile Basin", Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University
- Sennesael, F. (2022). "GEORGE ROBERTS Revolutionary State-Making in Dar es Salaam: African Liberation and the Global Cold War, 1961-1974", Africa, 92/5 , pp. 887-889
- Sennesael, F. (2022). 'What cattle conflicts say about identity in South Sudan', The Conversation, 04/05/2022
- Sennesael, F. (2022). “Arbitrary States: Social Control and Modern Authoritarianism in Museveni's Uganda”, Rebecca Tapscott, Oxford University Press. African Affairs, 121/484, pp.154-156
- Sennesael, F. (2021). “African Intelligence Services: Early Postcolonial and Contemporary Challenge”, Ryan Shaffer (ed), Rowman & Littlefield. LSE Review of Books, 5 November 2021
- Sennesael, F. (2020). ‘Elections and the Politics of Fear in Uganda: The End of Post-Liberation Politics?’, OxPol Blog, 10/12/20
- Sennesael, F. (2018). ‘Au Soudan du Sud, il est plus juste de parler de partage du gâteau que d’accord de paix’, Le Monde, 28/11/18
