Rate My Professor Margot Luyckfasseel

Her research specializes in Congolese history from below from the late 19th century to the present day, emphasizing urban-rural relations, language ideologies, debates on authenticity, and socio-economic themes such as slavery, labor, and trade. She has carried out fieldwork in Kinshasa, Kisangani, and Gemena, blending oral histories with archival sources. Notable publications include "Between marriage and slavery: women, social mobility, and the making of Ngwana power in late-nineteenth-century Central Africa" in the Journal of Eastern African Studies (2025); "Lingala only? A history of the D.R. Congo’s ideologies and counter-ideologies of monolingualism," co-authored with Michael Meeuwis and Joshua Castillo, in the Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics (2025); "“How will God hear us?”: Sonic and linguistic difference among Kinshasa's Églises des Noirs" (2023); "Opgedrongen maar omarmd? Koloniaal hokjesdenken, agency, en weerstand in Belgisch-Congo," contributed to the edited volume Consent: een geschiedenis van dwang en vrije wil en alles daartussenin; and "De wedloop om Afrika is terug van nooit weggeweest" (2026). She also authored the blog post "A bag of chips – and what it tells about Ghana's Pan-African history." At the University of Antwerp, she serves as an effective voting member on the Academic Committee on Global Engagement, multiple examination commissions for History programs, departmental councils, and education commissions. Recently, she undertook a four-month research fellowship at the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa in Accra, Ghana.