Jérome Emmanuel Bountsebe Ekassi is a doctoral researcher of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO Vlaanderen) at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven. He is a member of the Research Unit Systematic Theology and the Study of Religions and of the Centre for Liberation Theologies.
His research interests include African postcolonial theology, the relationship between theology and third-generation critical theory (Frankfurt School), and the combination of empirical and systematic approaches in political theology, with a particular focus on the relationship between political ecclesiology and "ecclesial ethnography".
In alignment with these research interests, his doctoral project, entitled Becoming Church in Times of Conflict: A Minor and Resonant Ecclesiology as an Ecclesio-Political Response to the Cameroonian Civil War, centers on the role of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, with a focus on the perspectives and practices of Small Christian Communities (SCCs). Through ethnographic fieldwork, this doctoral project investigates how marginalized voices and everyday reconciliation practices within SCCs can inform a reimagined ecclesiology. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Judith Gruber and the co-supervision of Prof. Dr. Annemie Dillen, this doctoral dissertation seeks to develop an ecclesiological theoretical framework that draws upon minority (Deleuze, Guattari) and resonance (Hartmut Rosa) theories. This framework will be used to correlate the results of ethnography within SCCs with the RCC's official theopolitical discourse. The aim is to address socio-political crises such as Cameroon's civil war and to enhance the credibility of the church in its relationship with the world and as a mediator of justice and reconciliation.
J.E. Bountsebe Ekassi studied Philosophy and Theology in Cameroon (Catholic University of Central Africa) before embarking on his Research Master: Master of Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion and now his doctoral research at KU Leuven in Belgium.