Emancipatory Technology Studies: Relations between technical and social Change

• Applicant: Dr. Yannick Kalff
• Subject Area: Sociological Theory ; Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 503022729

The aim of the network is to scrutinize the relationship between technology and emancipation and to systematize existing research that can be summarized as emancipatory technology studies. By emancipation, we mean the attempt to solve societal crises by addressing their root causes and the social conditions in order to overcome them causally. Increasingly, the field of social sciences analyzes crisis in an emancipatory fashion: They problematize deficiencies, undesirable developments, and offer solutions for overcoming societal challenges in the long term. The question of desirable social change is becoming the focus of scientific attention that puts forward societal designs with respective transformation pathways to deal with crises—and to strive for alternative developments.In these analyses, technology and its development is either an element of the crisis constellation—i.e., a part of the problem—or an element of transformation that helps overcome societal crises. Despite the growing interest, however, hardly any empirical or theoretical analyses have been undertaken on the relationship between technology and emancipation; no conceptual understanding has yet been gained from existing approaches. This is where this network comes into play.The network aims to develop an integrative approach that combines an analytical set of concepts and methods into a research program of emancipatory technology studies. With such a set of instruments, current emancipatory crisis management, which refers to technology and is carried out with technology, could be adequately captured and accompanied scientifically.The scientifically not yet systemized concept of emancipation is excellently suited for examining the normative content of various diagnosed crises and the proposals for dealing with them, while including the role of technology. In this way, the network contributes to the study of social and technological change, which is increasingly driven by actors with an explicit claim to participate in its design.Guided by this research interest, the network is working on three interrelated research questions: 1) What conceptual foundations can emancipatory technology studies draw from? 2) Which methodological foundations and empirical methods are suitable for emancipatory technology studies? 3) What do emancipatory technology studies contribute to three central topics in the research of technology—and what can be gained from the topics for emancipatory technology studies, vice versa?

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Sebastian Sevignani