Mag.a Dr.in Katja Mayer
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 established the field of "Critical Data Studies" at TU Munich.
Her research 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. Until recently she was Associate Researcher at the University of Vienna's research platforms "Governance of Digital Practices" and "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). Moreover, she was a member of the core team of the Open Access Network Austria (OANA), co-heading 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
Island Imaginaries. Introduction to a special section
- Author(s)
- Mascha Gugganig, Nina Klimburg-Witjes
- Abstract
Colonial empires, scientists, philanthropists and Hollywood studios have long sustained an image of islands as remote places with unique ecologies and cultures, experimental labs, or loci of escapism. The climate crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic have contributed to a predominant view of islands as both exceptional spaces and testbeds to be scaled up onto continental or planetary levels. Likewise, the metaphor of the island is foundational to Western thought yet has been less explored in the context of scientific processes and technology development. Bringing together science and technology studies (STS) with critical Island Studies and related fields, this special section expands upon the spatial dimension of sociotechnical imaginaries to consider islands and their imaginations as both preexisting and channeling visions of science and technology. The introduced concept of Island Imaginaries captures the mutual constitution of island visions and their materialization in scientific, technological and technocratic endeavors that are imagined and pursued by scientific communities, policymakers, and other social collectives. Such an approach explores the co-constitutive dynamic of islands as sites for the foundation of technoscientific knowledge regimes, and the concomitant rendering of islands as conducive places for discovery and experimentation. The special section offers empirical case studies with insights into islands as synecdoche for larger wholes (the Earth), as experimental and exceptional sites for trialing business creation and political orders (in Singapore, and for Asia), and as variously interpreted laboratory paradise (of Hawai‘i). Further research themes for STS are suggested in the Conclusion.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Science and Technology Studies
- External organisation(s)
- University of Ottawa, Technische Universität München
- Journal
- Science as Culture
- Volume
- 30
- Pages
- 321-341
- No. of pages
- 21
- ISSN
- 0950-5431
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2021.1939294
- Publication date
- 2021
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 506017 Science and technology policy, 504017 Cultural anthropology, 509025 Technology studies
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Health(social science), Cultural Studies, Biotechnology, Biomedical Engineering, History and Philosophy of Science, Sociology and Political Science
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/d98e7fce-719f-4e2b-9fa9-6f0e406f362f