Peter is a Belgian-German historian and anthropologist working on religion, technology, the environment and the political in Africa. Drawing on nearly two decades of fieldwork in the DR Congo, his work traces power in things, techniques and daily practice — asking how authority, legitimacy and belonging are produced under material scarcity and postcolonial rule. After his Kinshasa-based doctoral work on [religious globalisation and difference](https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/LambertzSeekers) (PhD, 2015) and initial research on vernacular transport governance in Dakar (Senegal), he moved his focus 1,700 km upriver to Kisangani, turning to the Congo River, its baleinières and their politics of infrastructure, bureaucracy and regulation, which also unsettle conventional ideas of “development.” Out of this grew the Mobeka initiative, built on his conviction that how knowledge is produced is itself a political matter: an applied, public anthropology of collaborative authorship with Congolese colleagues, understood as a practical decolonisation of knowledge production, working against technological inequality. He is currently Visiting Professor of Anthropology at the University of Kisangani (DR Congo) and of African History at the University of Bayreuth (Germany).
Tasks: Founder, Coordinator, Anthropological fieldwork, Fundraising, Project development, Website, CAD.
Just out: https://theconversation.com/dr-congos-riverboat-economy-how-a-floating-transport-system-tells-the-countrys-story-288941
Publications: https://ulb.academia.edu/PeterLambertz
Languages: German, English, French, Lingala, Dutch
Teaching:
- Winter semester 2026–2027 – Guest professor of African History (subst. Joel Glasman), University of Bayreuth (Germany) (Introduction to Global History, History of Africa’s Rivers, History Transport and Technology in Africa).
- 2023–present: Visiting professor, Université de Kisangani (UNIKIS), Département of Social and Cultural Anthropology (Anthropology of Development, Anthropology of Religion, Ethnographic Methods).
- Maître de conférence (subst. Véronique Joiris), Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) (Anthropologie du développement, anthropologie de l’environnement).
- 2022-2023: Guest professor of Anthropology (subst. Filip De Boeck), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) (Introduction to Anthropology; Political Anthropology; Anthropology and the Anthropocene; Interpreting Data Anthropologically; Ethnographic Cycle).
- 2019: Guest professor of Anthropology (subst. Ann Cassiman), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) (Anthropology of Material Culture)
- 2015–2016: Visiting professor, Philosophât Edith Stein, Kisangani (DR Congo) (History of Congo, History of Africa, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology).
Research positions:
- 2026–present: Postdoctoral research associate, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Centre d’anthropologie culturelle
- 2024–2026: Postdoctoral fellow, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, FORAGENCY / Social History of Capitalism
- 2023–2024: Postdoctoral fellow, Université Libre de Bruxelles, BANTURIVERS / Centre d’anthropologie culturelle
- 2021–2022: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, KU Leuven, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology
- 2019–2020: Postdoctoral fellow, Gerda Henkel Foundation / HU Berlin, Institute für Asian and African Studies
- 2017–2018: Postdoctoral fellow, German Historical Institute Paris & CREPOS Dakar
- 2016–2016: Visiting fellow, Zentrum Moderner Orient
- 2015–2016: Visiting professor, African History and Anthropology, Philosophat Edith Stein (priestly seminary), Kisangani (DR Congo).
Education:
- 2015 Utrecht University and Universität Leipzig (bi-national PhD), PhD African Studies / Religious Studies
- 2008 Universität Leipzig (- Stellenbosch – Wroclaw), MA Global Studies
- 2005 Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), License en Histoire (MA)
- 2003 Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), Candidature en Histoire (BA)
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