Professorial Chair Prof. Dr. Johannes Quack

Our research mainly focuses on the following, overlapping thematic fields Religion (and its others), Caste and Class, Ethics, Body and Gender as well as Queer Anthropology. In addition, chair members conduct research in the areas of Knowledge (trans)formation and Medicine (and therapeutic pluralism). Regionally we are interested in South Asia, in particular India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Himalayas (see the South Asia Forum), and Switzerland and Europe. Europe and South Asia are investigated against the background of their colonial and post-colonial interdependences. We are also concerned with asymmetrical research structures, anthropological team research and with the combination of biographic and ethnographic approaches.

Religion and its Others in South Asia and the World: Communities, Debates, Freedoms  (European Research Council (ERC))

The Diversity of Nonreligion (Emmy Noether Project, German Research Foundation)
Dynamics of Well-Being (Swiss Joint Research Program in the Social Sciences)
Narratives and Ontologies of Faith-Based Aid Workers (Swiss National Science Foundation)
Researching Secular and Religious Identities in Tandem (State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation)

Stefan Binder (aesthetics of religion, secularism, queer anthropology)
Anaël Jambers (Switzerland, conflicts, politics, free churches)
Paola Juan
Alexandra Jugelt (biography, ethics, prevention, religious othering)
Anne Kukuczka (gender, body, beauty, labour, im/mobility)
Minee Pratiksha (Caste, Dalit identity, Partition refugees, Urban Spaces, Subaltern History)
Johannes Quack (religion, ethics, medicine, knowledge)
Lindsay Vogt (politics of high technology, water, development)

Sandra Bärnreuther
Alexander Blechschmidt
Anne Breubeck
Katyayani Dalmia
Banhishikha Ghosh
Marina Gold
Paridhi Gupta
Maria Hughes
Clémence Jullien
Purbasha Mazumdar
Dilyara Müller-Suleymanova
Kumud Rana
Rajat Roy
Emanuel Schaeublin
Mareike Scherer
Mascha Schulz
Smriti Sharma
Alexios Tsigkas

We maintain extensive contacts and different forms of cooperation with the following institutions:

• Südasien-Institut Heidelberg
• Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi
• Abteilung für Ethnologie, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
• Museum Rietberg
• Insitut für Sozialanthropologie, Universität Bern
• Center for Security Studies, ETH Zürich
• Ethnologie, Universität Luzern
• Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras, Chennai
• Institute of Social Sciences, Charles University Prague

The following collaborations exist through projects or memorandi of understanding:

• MPI Ethnologie Halle
• Facultade de Xeografía e Historia, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
• Political Science, Sciences Po Lyon
• Dept. of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University
• University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
• University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

PhD - Completed

Main Supervisor (Erstbetreuer):

• Blechschmidt, Alexander – The Secular Movement in the Philippines: Nonbelief and Activism in a Catholic Country (Zurich University, supervised with Prof. Perter Bräunlein) - submitted 2020.
• Hughes, Maria – Narratives and Ontologies of faith-based aid workers (Zurich University, supervised with Prof. Thomas Kirsch) – submitted 2020.
• Schulz, Mascha – Convoluted Convictions, Partial Positionings: Non-Religion, Secularism, and Party Politics in Sylhet, Bangladesh (Zurich University, supervised with Prof. Katy Gardner), 2021.
• Breubeck, Anne – Devi, the Diva: The Good Life of a Thirunangai (Zurich University, supervised with PD Dr. Jan Patrick Heiss), 2023.
• Scherer, Mareike – Temporalities of Violence: Experiences among Alevi and Kurdish Young Adults in Transgenerational Processes (Zurich University, supervised with Prof. Sabine Strasser), 2023.
• Ghosh, Banhishikha – Dynamics of Chiyawali Koti Identity in Eastern India (Zurich University, supervised with Prof. Bandana Purkayastha), 2023.
• Luchsinger, Tanja – Inbetween. The Individual Experience of Multiple Belongings in Tension (Zurich University, supervised with Prof. Dr. Bhrigupati Singh and Prof. Dr. Lena Inowlocki), 2025.

Co-Supervisor (Zweitbetreuer) / Comittee:

• Meili, Iara – Metaphors of Posttraumatic Growth and Resilience in Cultural-Clinical Psychology (Zurich University, supervised with Prof. Andreas Maercker), 2018.
• Wickli, Urs – […] zum Wozu des Ethnologischen Museums Berlin im künftigen Humboldt- Forum: Annotationen, Versatzstücke und Stellungnahmen (Zurich University, supervised with Prof. Mareile Flitsch), 2018.
• Schuh, Cora – Politics of Secularity: Dutch Social-Liberals in a Post-Confessional Age (Leipzig University, supervised with Prof. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr), 2020.
• Rageth, Nina – Religion and Medicine: South Indian Guru Organisations and Siddha Medicine (Zurich University, supervised with Prof. Dorothea Lüddeckens), 2021.
• Ruther, Lilo –  Agency in Todesritualen: Eine empirische Untersuchung der Positionierung von gemeinschaftsungebundenen Ritualleiter*innen in der Deutschschweiz (Zurich University, supervised with Prof. Dorothea Lüddeckens), 2022.
• Müller, Dominik – Producing and Navigating Islamic Authority: A Relational Ethnography of Islamic Authorities, Mosques and Muslim Communities between Switzerland and Turkey (Zurich University, supervised with Prof. Peter Finke), 2022.
• Chakraborty, Sweta – The politics of superstitions: understanding secularism in India through the trinary of religion, rationalism and superstition (Dublin City University, supervised with Dr. Kenneth McDonagh), 2022.
• Gaudenz Metzger – Sterben in der individualisierten und digitalisierten Gesellschaft (Zurich University, supervised with Prof. Dorothea Lüddeckens), 2023.
• Kind, Susanne – Secular Humanism in Sweden: Non-Religious Activism in ‘One of the World’s most Secularized Countries’ (Leipzig University, spuvervised with Prof. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr), 2024.