Mag.a Dr.in Katja Mayer

Senior Post Doc

(Elise Richter Fellowship FWF)

The Politics of Openness

Tel: +43-1-4277-49612
eMail: katja.mayer@univie.ac.at

Biography

Katja Mayer is a sociologist and works at the interface of science, technology and society. Since 2019, she is working as senior postdoc with the Elise Richter Fellowship (FWF) at the Department of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Vienna. Her research focuses on the interaction between social science methods and their public spheres.

As part of her postdoc position at the Professorship of Computational Social Science and Big Data, she researched and taught in the field of "Critical Data Studies" at TU Munich.

Her focus is on the cultural, ethical and socio-technical challenges at the interface of computer science, social sciences and society. Data is treated less as a new raw material, but as a highly variable and fragile phenomenon. In the context of data-driven decision-making, data are not considered as "given", but the way we collect, transform, analyze, and trust data is up for discussion.

In addition, Katja also works as Senior Scientist at the Center for Social Innovation in Vienna and is an Associate Researcher at the University of Vienna's platform "Responsible Research and Innovation in Scientific Practice". For many years she has been teaching Sociology, STS and Web Sciences at the University of Vienna, the Danube University Krems, the University of Art and Design Linz and the University of Lucerne. She was a visiting fellow at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (USA). She is a member of the core team of the Open Access Network Austria (OANA) and co-heads the working group "National Strategy for the Transition to Open Science". In the years 2011-2013 she was a research fellow of the President of the European Research Council (ERC).

Publications

Sensing In/Security

Author(s)
Nina Klimburg-Witjes, Nikolaus Pöchhacker, Geoffrey C. Bowker
Abstract

Sensing In/Security is a book project that investigates how sensors and sensing practices enact regimes of security and insecurity. It extends long standing concerns with infrastructuring and emergent modes of surveillance and securitization by investigating how digitally networked sensors shape practices of securitization. Contributions in this volume engage with the ways in which sensing devices gain political and epistemic relevance in various forms of security, from border security and migration control to drone regulation, epidemiological tracking, aerial surveillance and hacking practices.
Using infrastructure and infrastructuring as a conceptual lens, these studies explore the conditions of possibility of sensing threats and in/security, rendering multiple worlds tangible and (sometimes even more importantly) intangible. Instead of solely focusing on the specific sensory devices and their consequences, this collection engages with the emergence of sensor infrastructures and networks and the shaping of such ‘macro entities’ as international organizations, states and the European Union.

Organisation(s)
Department of Science and Technology Studies
DOI
https://doi.org/10.28938/9781912729050
Publication date
2021
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
509025 Technology studies, 509024 Security research, 509017 Social studies of science
Keywords
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/sensing-insecurity(5cf2917c-08cf-4cca-b982-582ee36938c8).html