Zainabu Jallo
Early-Career Fellow 2025–2026

Zainabu Jallo is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in anthropology, whose work focuses on material culture and the histories of criminal anthropology in Italy, Brazil, and Cuba. Her research prior to joining the Collegium examined the significant impact of criminal anthropology and the implications of scientific counterfactuals on Afro-Atlantic traditions. This work is part of the Swiss National Science Foundation project Inherited Futures? Objects, Time, and Knowledge.

Zainabu holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Bern (CH). At the University of Basel (CH), she develops and teaches courses in provenance research, museum anthropology, Afro-Atlantic studies, iconic criticism, and material culture.

She is the author of Diasporic Consciousness in the Material Culture of Brazilian Candomblé (2025) and editor of the volume Material Culture in Transit: Theory and Practice (2023), part of the Routledge Studies in Anthropology and Museums series.