Bernard Coyault is an anthropologist (EHESS – Paris), associate researcher at the Institut des Mondes africains (IMAF) and at the mixed international research laboratory MOVIDA (Mobilities, Travels, Innovations and Dynamics in Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan Africa). He teaches Anthropology and Sociology of Religion, Global Christianity and Cultural Studies at the Faculty of Protestant Theology and Religious Studies in Brussels where he coordinates the activities of the Centre for Afro-European and Religious Studies (CARES). He is also a visiting professor at the National Pedagogical University of Kinshasa (DRC) and at the Al Mowafaqa Institute in Rabat (Morocco) where he was director from 2012 to 2018.
He has conducted research since 2002 in Congo Brazzaville on a protestant prophetic movement (Nsikumusu) and other contemporary Kongo prophetisms. His other research fields were in Morocco (2012-2018) among Migrant churches networks and more recently in Ethiopia (2019-2020) where he documented religious pluralism in a popular neighbourhood of Addis Abeba.
His work and publications focus on three areas: the religious dynamics of migratory paths and the emergence of a postcolonial and transnational Christianity in Europe; religious pluralisation in sub-Saharan and Mediterranean Africa; and prophetic movements in Central Africa.
