RF 3: Applied Sociology

Members: Anja Eder, Sabine Haring-Mosbacher, Barbara Hönig, Juliane Jarke (Sprecherin), Katharina Scherke, Thomas Zenkl

Former Members: Hannah Volk, (Peter Gasser-Steiner, pens.), (Gerhard Grossmann, pens.), Johanna Muckenhuber, (Manfred Prisching, pens.)

Brief description: The research focus (RF) Engaged Sociology conducts community-engaged research that follows a participatory approach to investigate social processes and practice. We collaborate with local, regional, national and international actors to research domains of high societal relevance and to identify possibilities for sustainable and socially just transformations. These domains include amongst others education, labour, healthcare, inequality, diversity, demographic ageing, and art. Particular importance is placed on facilitating knowledge transfer and science communication with different societal actors.

A special focus of our work is on the intensification of social problems through the increasing societal relevance of digital and data-intensive technologies. In our research, we explore how processes of digitalisation and datafication of social life lead to the organisation- and domain-specific transformation of knowledge regimes, practices, and power structures. We base this research within the interdisciplinary field of Data Studies, Critical Algorithm Studies and feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS).