Xavier Rousseaux

Xavier Rousseaux is Senior Researcher of the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS), associated to the Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve) where he is Director of the Centre d’histoire du droit et de la justice.

As a historian and sociologist, he studies the history of Crime and Justice, particularly the relations between norms, people and social practices. Working on judicial archives, he is particularly concerned by the issues of access to archival information and handling methodologies. As university professor training students in history, sociology and legal history in source methodology and the history of justice, he is also concerned by the deontological aspects of past preservation and recovery.

Since 2007, he has coordinated the Belgian Federal Interuniversity Attraction Pole (IAP) Justice and Society: the sociopolitical history of justice administration in Belgium (1795-2005) and the Coordinated Research Action Violence & Youth 1880-1980 (Université catholique de Louvain); he also takes part in Prosopography Project of the Belgian Magistrates (1795-1960) by the FNRS-RFC).

He is member of the editorial board of Crime, History & Societies and the Cahiers d’histoire du temps present/Bijdragen tot de Eigentijdse Geschiedenis, and is part of the European Group for Research into Norms (CNRS).