Dr. Alice Hertzog is a social anthropologist whose current work focuses on the circulation of contested cultural heritage in postcolonial contexts. She is the co-author, with Dr. Enibokun Uzébu of a recent report into the provenance of the Benin Bronzes in eight Swiss public museums. This resulted in the participating museums agreeing to the return of looted or potentially looted objects to their original owner.
Alice Hertzog’s previous work examined on the circulation of migrants and subsequent transformations within the urban fabric. This was a question she explored in Paris, where she studied commercial migrant spaces. In West Africa, where she wrote her doctoral dissertation on urban migration along the Lagos-Abidjan corridor. And in Zurich, where she has studied the arrival of female migrants during the pandemic.
Alice Hertzog is an alumni of Cambridge University, Sciences Po Paris, L’Ecole Normale d’Ulm and ETH Zürich. She has worked for the Museum Rietberg, le Musée du Quai Branly, as well as foundations, think-tanks, development cooperations and cities.
In May 2023 Alice Hertzog was appointed as provenance researcher at the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich. The museum holds ethnographic objects from all over the world alongside with a textual, visual, and sound archive. Two central questions will guide her research in these collections: how did these pieces come to be in the collection, and in what manner can they be reconnected with concerned communities today?
Alice Hertzog’s previous work examined on the circulation of migrants and subsequent transformations within the urban fabric. This was a question she explored in Paris, where she studied commercial migrant spaces. In West Africa, where she wrote her doctoral dissertation on urban migration along the Lagos-Abidjan corridor. And in Zurich, where she has studied the arrival of female migrants during the pandemic.
Alice Hertzog is an alumni of Cambridge University, Sciences Po Paris, L’Ecole Normale d’Ulm and ETH Zürich. She has worked for the Museum Rietberg, le Musée du Quai Branly, as well as foundations, think-tanks, development cooperations and cities.
In May 2023 Alice Hertzog was appointed as provenance researcher at the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich. The museum holds ethnographic objects from all over the world alongside with a textual, visual, and sound archive. Two central questions will guide her research in these collections: how did these pieces come to be in the collection, and in what manner can they be reconnected with concerned communities today?
Alice Hertzog
laboratory speaker
The Swiss Benin Initiative: addressing contested colonial collections in Swiss museums
RECOMMENDED LINKS
John Olivier Last Week Tonight on Museums
Alice Hertzog & Enibokun
“The Paperless Archive. Recasting Benin Collections as a Displaced Archive”
John Olivier Last Week Tonight on Museums
Alice Hertzog & Enibokun
“The Paperless Archive. Recasting Benin Collections as a Displaced Archive”
