Jana Mikats

currently on maternity leave

Jana Mikats is research associate at the Department of Sociology in the research area "Sociology of Gender & Gender Studies".

She holds degrees in Sociology (BA 2011, MA 2014) and Fennistics (BA 2013) from the University of Vienna, she spent a study abroad semester at the University of Lappland/Finland. In her studies she specialized in family sociology, gender studies and qualitative research methods. Currently she is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of Vienna. Jana joined the Department of Sociology at the University of Graz in May 2016. Previously she worked as a research associate in Disability & Diversity Studies at Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, visiting researcher at the Family Research Center at the University of Jyväskylä/Finland, and a tutor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Vienna.

She received research scholarships from the University of Vienna (2013, 2018), scholarships for excellent academic performance (2011,2012,2014), an ERASMUS scholarship (2010), and a Leonardo da Vinci European Mobility Grant (2014).

Research and teaching interests:

· Sociology of Gender & Gender Studies

· Family and Childhood Studies

· Qualitative Methods

Membership in Academic Boards:

• Koordinationsstelle für Geschlechterstudien und Frauenförderung, University of Graz
• Board of the Section “Feminist Theory and Gender Research” of the Austrian Association for Sociology

Current Book Projects:

• Creative Families: Gender and Technologies of Everyday Life, co-edited by Jana Mikats, Susanne Kink-Hampersberger, and Libora Oates-Indruchová, Palgrave Studies in Mediating Kinship, Representation, and Difference.

Current Projects:

• Remote Mentoring für Mädchen beim Programmieren-Lernen mit Pocket Code,  Netidee programme of the Internet Privatstiftung Austria (grant holder: Graz University of Technology). (2017-2018). Project homepage: https://www.netidee.at/remotementor
• Dissertation: When Home Becomes a Workplace: Family Practices in the Context  Home-Based Work 

In my dissertation project I examine everyday practices of families engaged in home-based work in creative industries in Austria.The project sheds light on the overlaps resp. the blurring of boundaries between private life and paid work and the interrelated space-time arrangements, when the family home becomes the location of both family life and workplace.  The practice-theoretical approach underlines three aspects: 1) how  family practices are carried out in the specific context of home-based work  , 2) the spatiotemporal, material and abstract aspects of these  family practices, and 3) the gendered and generational differences. The multi-perspective framework combines family and childhood studies with gender theory. The reearch is based on a multi-perspective (parents and children (aged 4 - 10 years)) and qualitative multimethod (interviews, photo elicitations, socio-spatial network games, and observations/shadowing) fieldwork with 11 families in Austria.