is the program director of the Africa Research Center, Belguim and a professor of Anthropology at the University of Leuven. His academic interests include postcolonial identity in Africa, processes of accumulation and expenditure in informal economies, history, memory, death, and popular urban culture, especially with regard to children and youth. Together with Alcinda Honwana (currently Program Director at the Social Science Research Council, New York ) he edited Makers and Breakers: Children and Youth in Postcolonial Africa (2005). He also co-edited a special issue on children and politics in Africa for Politique Africaine (2000). His most recent publication is Kinshasa: Tales of the Invisible City (2006), a joint book project with photographer Marie-Françoise Plissart.