Prof. Dr. Alice Hertzog
Alice Hertzog is a social anthropologist, urban researcher and museum director. She completed her PhD at the Chair of Sociology, Department of Architecture, ETH Zürich in 2020, having previously trained at Cambridge University, Sciences Po and École Normale Supérieur d’Ulm.
As a social anthropologist, her research has two main preoccupations. The first, in the field of urban anthropology, questions the social transformations occurring with post-migrant cityscapes. Her PhD, entitled “The Lagos Abidjan Corridor, Migration Driven Urbanisation in West Africa” explored the role of mobility in the emergence of a metropolitan corridor along the Guinea Gulf. This work was undertaken in collaboration with the Global Programme on Migration and Development at the Swiss Development Cooperation and in partnership with the USYS TdLab at ETH Zurich.The results of this work feature in the multi-modal web-documentary “Migrant Journeys” and the collaborative research project “Extended Urbanisation. Tracing Planetary Struggles.”
The second focus of her research, situated in museum anthropology, investigates the circulation of contested cultural heritage held in ethnographic museums. As a post-doctoral researcher, she worked for the Museum Rietberg in Zurich, where she undertook research for the Swiss Benin Initiative, investigating the collections of eight Swiss museums. In 2023 she then joined the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich as provenance researcher.
Both aspects of her research are influenced by postcolonial perspectives, examining the ways in which flows of people and material culture negotiate colonial legacies and impact social change.
In 2025 she was nominated assistant professor with tenure track for social and cultural anthropology and director of the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich.
Alice Hertzog: Ethnographic Museum, University of Zurich
Alice Hertzog: Dissertation
Alice Hertzog: Migrant Journeys
Ethnographic Museum, UZH: Swiss Benin Initiative