Dr. Christoph Müller

Christoph Müller works at the intersection of urban research, social change, and sustainable development. His research and practice focus on the impacts of urbanisation, digitalisation and displacement—particularly in the context of the Global South. He received his doctorate in sociology (Dr. sc. ETH Zurich) from the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich. His dissertation was supervised by Christian Schmid (ETH Zurich) and Heinzpeter Znoj (University of Bern), and was conducted in collaboration with the Future Cities Laboratory Singapore and the University of Bern.

Christoph Müller was born in Switzerland in 1984. He studied Social Anthropology, Psychology, and Sustainable Development at the University of Bern and later completed a Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Global Cooperation and Sustainable Development at ETH Zurich. Between 2015 and 2023, he was involved in several international research projects on urbanisation in Indonesia and India—including participation in Winter Schools at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Assam—accompanied by long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Jakarta.

His dissertation, “Urban Transformation of Jakarta: Displacement, Personal Centrality and the Making of Social Space” (ETH Diss. No. 29398), explores the long-term effects of inner-city displacement on the lives of affected residents. Based on ten biographical case studies and a participatory, multi-sited ethnographic approach, he developed the concept of personal centrality—the social, economic, and spatial core of everyday life—and showed how its loss reshapes mobility patterns, social networks, and urban structure. The dissertation contributes to postcolonial urban research and provides practice-relevant impulses for socially compatible urban development strategies.

In addition to his academic work, Christoph Müller has over 20 years of experience in project management, consulting, and organisational development—particularly in the fields of social integration, sustainability, and non-profit management. He has held senior positions in NGOs, developed programmes in labour market integration, circular economy, and social innovation, and supports transformation processes in the public and non-profit sectors.