Living Islam in Colonial Bujumbura: The Historical Trans-Locality of Muslim Life between East and Central Africa

Dr. Geert Castryck (SFB 1199)

Geert Castryck is a historian specialized in African and global history, particularly focusing on East and Central Africa from a global and transregional perspective. He published on African urban history, Islam in East and Central Africa, colonialism, and colonial legacies.

He got his PhD in history from Ghent University for a dissertation about the Muslim communities of Bujumbura (Burundi) in the colonial era.

Since 2010 he is affiliated with Leipzig University, where he worked at the Institute of African Studies, at the Centre for Area Studies, and since 2016 at the Collaborative Research Centre “Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition” (SFB 1199). In the academic year 2015-’16, he was visiting professor in African history at Ghent University.

Current research projects include a global urban history of Kigoma/Ujiji (today Tanzania) and a history of the redefinition of space in East and Central Africa as well as in Europe during and after the Scramble for Africa.