Research
Reflecting its members’ diverse disciplinary backgrounds in sociology, social anthropology, political science, history and philosophy, the department brings various theoretical approaches and methodological skills to the study of society, knowledge, and politics: comparative research projects based on social theory; ethnographic theorization based on long-term participant observation; case studies, interviews, discourse analysis; surveys, as well as technology assessment.
Thematically, the department’s research specifically focuses on sustainability, science as culture & practice, knowledge & democracy, and infrastructures. These themes are connected by the overarching concern with global challenges of human life and survival and possible futures that result from scientific, technological, and societal change.
Sustainability
The notion of sustainability commonly refers to the question of how to address current (environmental) problems in ways that secure good living in the future – in an ecological, economic, and social sense. Research at the department focuses on how scientific and technological means are employed to achieve a sustainable future and thereby define what sustainability may mean. Both the concept as such and its practical articulations are thereby critically interrogated. Research and teaching address various issues, including how different kinds of knowledge are produced and how they intersect in efforts to make sense of environmental threats and their solutions; how particular technological solutions are proposed, developed, deployed, and contested in the pursuit of a sustainable future, and how scientific, political and civil society institutions interact in developing sustainability strategies. This work covers a range of areas implicated in sustainability projects such as energy, biodiversity, climate engineering, and more.
Projects
Third-party funding
Ongoing
- Banking on zoos for conservation?
Funding: Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF)
Researcher: Erik Aarden
Period: May 2025-April 2028
- Panda Heritage: Kinship Measurements and Life’s Value in Species Conservation
Funding: Fellowship at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg inherit – Heritage in Transformation, HU Berlin, 2024-2025
Researcher: Christof Lammer
Period: 2023-2026
Completed
- Reflexive Governance in a Changing Climate: How to Address Uncertainties in Transformation Strategies?
Funding: Austrian Climate Research Program, 8th Call
Researchers: Daniel Barben(PI); with Christoph Görg (Social Ecology AAU/BOKU)
Period: 2016-2020 - Responsible Research and Governance at the Science-Policy Nexus of Climate Change: New Discourses, Epistemic Communities and Climate Policy Regimes through Climate Engineering?
Funding: German Research Foundation (DFG): Priority Program 1689
Researchers: Daniel Barben; with Silke Beck (UFZ Leipzig)
Period: 2017-2019 - Climate Engineering: Risks, Challenges, Opportunities?
Funding: German Research Foundation (DFG): Priority Program 1689
Researchers: Daniel Barben(Co-PI); Coordinator: Andreas Oschlies (GEOMAR Kiel)
Period: 2012-2019 - How to Meet a Global Challenge? Climate Engineering at the Science-Policy Nexus: Contested Understandings of Responsible Research and Governance
Funding: German Research Foundation (DFG): Priority Program 1689
Researchers: Daniel Barben; with Nina Janich (TU Darmstadt)
Period: 2013-2016
Other Projects
Ongoing
- Making meanings of biodiversity: Species monitoring and science communication at two Austrian biosphere reserves
Researcher: Erik Aarden - Digitalization and Sustainability: Challenges, Potentials, Strategic Visions
Researchers: Daniel Barben, with Katharina Kinder-Kurlanda (Digital Age Research Center, University of Klagenfurt) - Endangered Planet and Ways of Life: Futures Expertise and Un/Sustainable Transformations
Researcher: Daniel Barben - Sustainable Bioeconomy and Societal Transformation
Researcher: Daniel Barben
Science as Culture & Practice
The central topics are the interaction and boundaries between the diverse cultures and practices of the social, cultural and natural sciences, the social importance of universities as research organizations and educational institutions, and the communication of scientific findings through the media. Historical and current scientific cultures are examined with regard to their strategies for acquiring knowledge, their social forms and symbolic representations. This promotes a cross-disciplinary dialogue between the different social and cultural science perspectives.
Projects
Third-party funding
Ongoing
- Producing Novelty and Securing Credibility in LHC Experiments
Funding: Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
Researchers: Martina Merz (PI), Daria Jadreškić, Helene Sorgner
Period: 2016 – 2024
Completed:
- Transnationale Ansätze und multi-perspektivische Methoden in der Geschichtsvermittlung
Funding: Europäische Kommission
Researcher: Angelika Brechelmacher (PI)
Period: 2020 – 2023 - Interactive Comprehensive Tool for Holocaust Education
Funding: Erasmus+
Researcher: Angelika Brechelmacher (co-PI); with Regina Wonisch
Period: 2016 – 2019
Habilitation
PhD Projects
Ongoing:
- Establishing Credibility in Large Research Collaborations: The Case of Junior Researchers at the LHC
Researcher: Helene Sorgner - Zwischen Fakt und Fiktion: Erzählen im mathematischen Sachbuch
Researcher: Martina Gröschl - Subjektivieren und bewerten: Das Curriculum Vitae im Alltag der Wissenschaft
Researcher: Markus Tumeltshammer
Completed:
- Governance of academic careers in Austria: A history of career paths, modes of employment and appointment procedures at Austrian universities from 1365 to 1920
Researcher: Elke Welp-Park
Other Projects
Ongoing:
Evaluating a detector: Technical review in a High-Energy Physics collaboration
Researchers: Daria Jadreškić & Martina Merz
Epistemic Risk and Technology Development
Researchers: Daria Jadreškić; with Marianne van Panhuys (KIT)
Biomedical Research and Societal Values
Researchers: Daria Jadreškić; with Vanja Pupovac (University of Rijeka)
Completed:
Wissenschaftlische Politikberatung: Eine Fallstudie zur Leopoldin
Researchers: Martina Merz (co-PI); with Eva Bärlosius (Univesity of Hannover) & Stefan Böschen (RWTH Aachen)
Period: 2019 – 2021
Interdisciplining the University: Prospects for Sustainable Knowledge Production
Researchers: Martina Merz; with Mikko Salmela (PI, University of Helsinki) & Miles MacLeod (University Of Twente)
Period: 2016 – 2021
Knowledge & Democracy
Democracy, literally “government by the people” is a contested term claimed for diverse practices and processes, ranging from a narrow focus on the election of rulers to broader ideas about rights to transparency and participation in all kinds of decision-making. Since the emergence of the field of STS, the mutual shaping of science, technology, and democracy has been a key concern. In particular, STS has uncovered unexpected consequences of science and technology for democracy and called for the democratization of science and technology development. Given the persistent limitations of technocratic rule-making as well as recent populist attacks on science-informed policies, the department’s research makes timely contributions to debates on the politics of expertise. Research at the department critically reflects on the discourses, actors, institutions, and techniques that produce, translate, negotiate and disseminate expertise for political and societal decision-making. We address global challenges through cases such as climate engineering, computational modeling, regional expertise, welfare, or the governance of Big Science projects.
Projects
Habilitation
Ongoing:
- Establishing Credibility in Large Research Collaborations: The Case of Junior Researchers at the LHC
Researcher: Helene Sorgner
Completed:
- Modeling for Policy Advice: Science, Power, and Opening
Researcher: Anja Bauer
PhD Projekts
Inhalt des Toggles hier rein
Other Projects
Ongoing:
- Handbook on Knowledge Politics
Researchers: Daniel Barben, Erik Aarden, Anja Bauer - Anthropology and China(s): Co-Constructions of Ethnographic and Academic Regions
Funding: German Research Foundation (DFG) Scientific Network
Researchers: Christof Lammer, with Marco Lazzarotti (Heidelberg University) and Jean-Baptiste Pettier (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)
Period: 2021–2025
Infrastructures
Infrastructures are commonly associated with durable and physical background structures like roads or bridges, which are thought to provide the necessary underlying foundation for the functioning of society and the economy. Work at the department critically interrogates such built infrastructures but also information infrastructures, for instance, databases, standards, and classifications. As such, infrastructures enable or limit not only the circulation of people, objects, and ideas but also forms of knowledge production, measurement, and valuation. While infrastructures are typically taken for granted, remain invisible, and are perceived as neutral, they come to embody specific values and goals through practices of infrastructuring, such as designing, building, maintaining, and using. They also produce inclusions and exclusions of people and thus result in social inequalities. Research and teaching at the department address how infrastructures are produced through practices, decisions, and interpretations and which social, political, and material consequences infrastructures generate. We explore such questions in a diverse range of fields, including agriculture, medicine, digital bureaucracy, and large-scale scientific collaborations.
Projects
Third-party funding
Ongoing
- Testing (bio)governance: A technology-centered comparison of the biomoralities at work in SARS-CoV-2 testing in Austria, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom
Funding: Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF)
Researcher: Erik Aarden (Head)
Period: 01.04.2024 – 31.03.2028
PhD-Projects
Ongoing:
- Classifying Citizens, Updating the State: How Practicing Digital Welfare Shapes Statehood in Colombia
Funding: Marietta Blau Grant (Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, 2023-2024)
Researcher: Julia Malik
Period: 2022–2026
Other Projects
Ongoing:
- Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities
Researcher: Daniel Barben - Urbanization, Agricultures, and Sustainable Development
Researcher: Daniel Barben
Completed:
- Infrastructures of Value: New and Historical Materialities in Agriculture
Researchers: Christof Lammer, with André Thiemann (Czech Academy of Sciences)
Period: 2019–2023 - Measuring Kinship: Gradual Belonging and Thresholds of Exclusion
Researchers: Christof Lammer, with Tatjana Thelen (University of Vienna)
Period: 2018–2021
Quicklinks
Portals
Information for
Address
Universitätsstraße 65-67
9020 Klagenfurt am Wörthersee
Austria
+43 463 2700
uni [at] aau [dot] at
www.aau.at
Campus Plan
