My name is Jan-Hendrik Passoth, I am a professor of Sociology of Technology and head of the Science & Technology Studies Group at European New School of Digital Studies (ENS), a joint academic venture of the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) and the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan. The STS Group @ ENS ethnographically explores the ongoing digital transformation of our lives, our working environments and our institutions by focusing on the manifold entanglements between infrastructures, datafication and communication in digital societies. I write about the social and cultural role of software, data and algorithms and I work in close collaboration with Projects in Computer Science, Mathematics and Software Engineering.
My dissertation “Technik und Gesellschaft” (“Technology and Society”) looked at the emergence and change of social science concepts of technology. My habilitation “Soziologie der Umstände” (“Sociology of Circumstances”) developed a set of heuristic devices for the analysis of heterogenous practices and transsituational social and cultural order by connecting practice theory and actor-network theory. I am a co-editor of “Agency without Actors? New Approaches to Collective Action” (Jan-Hendrik Passoth, Birgit Peuker and Michael Schillmeier, 2010), “Quoten, Kurven und Profile. Zur Vermessung der sozialen Welt” (Jan-Hendrik Passoth and Josef Wehner, 2012), “Leben nach Zahlen. Self-Tracking als Optimierungsprojekt?” (Stefanie Duttweiler, Robert Gugutzer, Jan-Hendrik Passoth and Jörg Strübing, 2016) and “Bedeutende Daten. Modelle, Verfahren und Praxis der Vermessung und Verdatung im Netz” (Thorben Mämecke, Jan-Hendrik Passoth and Josef Wehner, 2017).