Suchergebnisse

The point of departure for this thesis is that science, technology (S&T) and global politics are co-productive of each other. Situated at the intersections of Science and Technology Studies and International Relations, it explores the interactions between S&T and global politics on the level of discourses, institutions, representations and identities. Its three case studies focus on international S&T cooperation between Austria and China, science diplomacy and satellite imagery analysis in the context of security policy. As a cumulative thesis it presents three articles published in /accepted by international peer-reviewed publications. ; Ausgangspunkt der Dissertation ist ein Verständnis von Wissenschaft, Technologie (W&T) und globaler Politik als ko-produktiv. Situiert an der Schnittstelle von Wissenschafts-und Technologieforschung und Internationalen Beziehungen untersucht die Dissertation die Interaktionen von W&T und globaler Politik auf der Ebene von Diskursen, Institutionen, Repräsentationen und Identitäten. Die Fallstudien behandeln internationale W&T Kooperationen, Wissenschaftsdiplomatie sowie Satellitenbildanalyse im Kontext von Sicherheitspolitik. Als kumulative Dissertation baut die Arbeit auf drei Artikeln auf, die in internationalen Publikationen veröffentlicht / akzeptiert wurden.

A broad range of non-state actors make use of commercial satellite imagery to monitor global security issues. Questioning the favourable narrative of achieving 'global transparency' through Earth observation, the article unravels the underlying relations between the US government, commercial imagery providers, and other non-state actors. Linking insights from Science and Technology Studies and International Relations, two related arguments are put forward: first, the commercialization of satellite technology and imagery does not dismiss the influence of the state but is conducive of the co-production of shifting actor constellations and related to that, different ideas about transparency and power. Secondly, this leads to a less benign understanding of transparency which emphasizes its contingent emergence, limited scope, and context dependence. This 'fragile transparency' exposes the shifting power relations inherent to commercial satellite imagery and its potential as a political practice to render certain things as visible and threats to international security.

Making Europe through Infrastructures of In/Security: An Introduction Nina Klimburg-Witjes and Paul TrauttmansdorffPart I. Infrastructures and the Technopolitics of In/Security 1. Becoming a new European: the politics and practices of Czech biosecurity infrastructuresDagmar Vorlíček and Jan Daniel2. Energy infrastructuring the Baltic Sea Region: Between technification and securitization Trine Villumsen Berling, Izabela Surwillo, and Veronika Slakaityte Part II. Infrastructures and the (Non)Knowledges of In/Security 3. Infrastructures of (non)knowledge: Fakes and fear at Europe's borders Claudia Aradau 4. Circulating Data Objects. Infrastructural coordination and technoburaucratic governance of European border control Jan Passoth and Silvan Pollozek 5. The torqued, invaded, and speculative figure of the 'crimmigrant other': standardizing criminal suspicion against migrants Nina Amelung Part III. Infrastructural Imaginaries of In/Security 6. Policy as Infrastructure: Enacting Artificial Intelligence and Making Europe Bao-Chau Pham and Sarah R Davies 7. A remedy for European preparedness deficits? The EU Health Union as a deepening of securitized and pharmaceuticalized health emergency governance Christian Haddad Afterword Annalisa Pelizza

Like other forms of debris in terrestrial and marine environments, space debris prompts questions about how we can live with the material remains of technological endeavors past and yet to come. Although techno-societies fundamentally rely on space infrastructures, they so far have failed to address the infrastructural challenge of debris. Only very recently has the awareness of space debris as a severe risk to both space and Earth infrastructures increased within the space community. One reason for this is the renewed momentum of interplanetary space exploration, including the colonization of the Moon and Mars, which is part of transhumanist and commercially driven dreams of the so-called New Space age. Understanding space infrastructures as inherently linked to earthly infrastructure, we attend to the ways in which space debris, a once accepted by-product of scientific-technological progress, economic interests, and geopolitics, increasingly becomes a matter of concern. Drawing on qualitative interviews with European space sector representatives and work in Science and Technology Studies on infrastructures, we argue that their discursive efforts and visual representation strategies coproduce space debris as a boundary infrastructure. We suggest considering this boundary infrastructure as relating orbital environments and the planet through enacting sustainability and responsibility for beyond-planetary environments.

Today, social engineering techniques are the most common way of committing cybercrimes through the intrusion and infection of computer systems. Cybersecurity experts use the term "social engineering" to highlight the "human factor" in digitized systems, as social engineering attacks aim at manipulating people to reveal sensitive information. In this paper, we explore how discursive framings of individual versus collective security by cybersecurity experts redefine roles and responsibilities at the digitalized workplace. We will first show how the rhetorical figure of the deficient user is constructed vis-à-vis notions of (in)security in social engineering discourses. Second, we will investigate the normative tensions that these practices create. To do so, we link work in science and technology studies on the politics of deficit construction to recent work in critical security studies on securitization and resilience. Empirically, our analysis builds on a multi-sited conference ethnography during three cybersecurity conferences as well as an extensive document analysis. Our findings suggest a redistribution of institutional responsibility to the individual user through three distinct social engineering story lines—"the oblivious employee," "speaking code and social," and "fixing human flaws." Finally, we propose to open up the discourse on social engineering and its inscribed politics of deficit construction and securitization and advocate for companies and policy makers to establish and foster a culture of collective cyber in/security and corporate responsibility.

Abstract
This paper empirically retraces and conceptualizes secrecy in the study of security. Building on 27 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with social scientists about their field research experiences, we use Gieryn's concept of "boundary work" to rethink secrecy not as a self-evident separator between clearly demarcated spheres but as something that is negotiated, suspended, or circumvented in social situations. A boundary perspective allows us to highlight how contextualized social interactions draw and redraw lines between what can be known and what remains classified. Our analysis identifies three ways in which boundaries around secrecy can be expanded: fallibility, co-optation, and ambiguity. Explicating and empirically substantiating these forms of boundary work portrays secrecy as continuously performed and reconfigured. The paper contributes to current debates about field research by providing a different conceptual angle: one that favours performativity rather than individual capacity to reflect how access to security sites and actors comes into being.

Sensing In/Security is a book project that investigates how sensors and sensing practices enact regimes of security and insecurity. It extends long standing concerns with infrastructuring and emergent modes of surveillance and securitization by investigating how digitally networked sensors shape practices of securitization. Contributions in this volume engage with the ways in which sensing devices gain political and epistemic relevance in various forms of security, from border security and migration control to drone regulation, epidemiological tracking, aerial surveillance and hacking practices. Using infrastructure and infrastructuring as a conceptual lens, these studies explore the conditions of possibility of sensing threats and in/security, rendering multiple worlds tangible and (sometimes even more importantly) intangible. Instead of solely focusing on the specific sensory devices and their consequences, this collection engages with the emergence of sensor infrastructures and networks and the shaping of such 'macro entities' as international organizations, states and the European Union. ; Full book (open access) will be published by Mattering Press (2021)