
I am a Professor (full professor/Hoogleraar) at the Institute of Development Policy at Antwerp University. My work lies at the intersection of political science, development – and area – studies, and relies heavily on field research.
I’m the author of ‘Rebel Lives. Photographs from inside the Lord’s Resistance Army’ (Hannibal Books), and Negotiating Public Services in the Congo (edited with Tom De Herdt, Zed Books), in addition to articles for publications such as African Affairs, the Washington Post, International Affairs and many others.
I focus on governance- and conflict- dynamics in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). I study the ways in which the state interacts with a range of non-state actors at a variety of scales and with a variety of actors: rebel groups, international donors, local non-state actors, and so on.
I am fascinated by the use of visual material, both as a research method, as a way to make academic output available to a broader audience, and for its aesthetic value in itself. My book and exhibition Rebel Lives – in collaboration with Georges Senga, Rein Deslé and others – is an important example.
I obtained my PhD at the Conflict Research Group, Ghent University, in 2007. I was a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE) in 2013-2014, at the Department of International Development. I have worked, and continue to work, closely with a number of Universities in the DRC and Uganda, through VLIR-UOS partnerships.
I am a regular contributor to a variety of media-platforms, such as Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, Al Jazeera English, African Arguments, and many others.
I regularly engage with policy, in a number of ways. I for example was an expert witness at the International Criminal Court for the case of ex-LRA commander Dominic Ongwen; or my spotlight briefing for the UNDP Borderlands Centre, where I wrote about informal cross-border trade along the Uganda-DRC border.
I live with my family in Antwerp, and spend a lot of time on Antwerp’s playgrounds with our three kids. I’m pretty obsessed with photography (I studied photography at the Luca School of Arts, Ghent, 2003-2007). Have a look at this website to see my own work; and a few of my favorite recent photo books are from Michele Sibilone, Bertien Van Maanen and Philippe Dutouit .
Contact: Kristof.titeca (at) uantwerp.be
You can follow me on Twitter, Researchgate, Academia or Instagram. (but please reach out via email, rather than through messaging on these platforms).
News
The paper ‘The Real State: Inside The Congo’s Traffic Police Agency’ is being published as a working paper, for a series of outlets – such as the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Becker Friedman Institute. The paper, co-authored with Raul Sanchez de la Sierra, Haoyang (Stan) Xie, Albert Malukisa Nkuku & Aimable A. Lameke, has been years in the making (with field research being conducted in 2015). It quantitatively maps unofficial revenue collection by the Kinshasa traffic police, and offers new quantitative data on the way unofficial revenue is collected and distributed within the police administration. AFP wrote on the paper here.
I’ve recently written a number of op-eds on current political dynamics in Uganda, such as the Muhoozi project; or Operation Shujaa – the joint Uganda-Congo military operation to combat the ADF rebel group. A policy brief on the relations between EU and Uganda was published by the Egmont Institute.