Jakob Roschka (M.A.)

12/2023-03/2024
Visiting Fellowship at the Department for Technology and Social Change (TEMAT) at the Linköping University, Sweden.

since 07/2023
Research assistant in the BMUV-project "Agenda Zukunftsorientierte Verbraucherforschung" ("Agenda future oriented consumper policy")

since 06/2021
Doctoral studies in Sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences as well as member of the doctoral program "Sozio-technische Gestaltungskompetenz in der digitalen Gesellschaft" ("Socio-technical Design Competence in the Digital Society") of the Research Center for Information System Design at the University of Kassel.

since 04/2020
Research assistant in the Research Unit Sociological Theory at the University of Kassel.

2017-2020
Studies of Sociology and Computer Science at the University of Kassel, degree M.A. Sociology.

2017-2018
Research assistant at the Institute for Participative Design in Oldenburg, Germany.

2016-2017
Training as a mediator according to the standards of the Bundesverband Mediation e.V. (German Mediation Association) in Hannover

2013-2017
Studies of Sociology, Politics, Public Law and Administrative Sciences at the University of Münster, graduated with a B.A. in Sociology/Political Science.

Functions

– Mid-level representative in the faculty council of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Kassel (10/2021-09/2023)
– Member of the board of directors of the Research Center for Information System Design at the University of Kassel (12/2020-10/2022)

Memberships

– Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS) (German Sociological Association)
– Doing STS in and through Germany (stsing)
– Bundesnetzwerk Verbraucherforschung (Federal Network for Consumer Research)
– Fachverband Bürgerbeteiligung (fvbb) (Professional Association for Public Participation)
– Deutsche Gesellschaft für Designtheorie und -forschung (dgtf) (German Association for Design Theory and Research)

Dissertation Project: Response-able Design / Designing Response-ability - Patterns of Responsible Design of Intelligent Energy Systems

In my PhD thesis, I want to learn more about the process of designing smart energy infrastructures and their social conditions and consequences.

In a historical reconstruction of the development of energy infrastructures over the last 35 years and the social arenas in which this development takes place, I have worked out how the idea of "smart electrification" is becoming accepted as a hegemonic design principle. By smart electrification, I understand the electrification of energy infrastructures, the increased importance of power grids as "infrastructures of infrastructures," and the digital interconnection of generation, distribution, and consumption facilities in a cybernetically expanding "internet of energy."

I am particularly interested in the role that consumers (citizens as well as non-human facilities and institutions), on the one hand, and energy and infrastructures themselves, on the other hand, play in the design. In my analysis, I reconstruct patterns of response-able (Barad 2003; 2007) design of smart energy infrastructures: Are there alternative versions of energy beyond a cybernetic logic of expansion and the idea of smart electrification? And can these alternatives be reconstructed through a different involvement of consumers and energies in the design?

The project is divided into 3 subprojects:

– A reconstruction of the emergence and genesis of smart grids and their design with the help of a social-world mapping, an interpretive pattern analysis of the smart grid discourse (1990-2015) and in-depth expert interviews,

– an ethnography and interpretive pattern analysis of the design of permaculture and passive energy systems

– and a social theoretical examination of the concepts of social form (Gestalt), social design (Gestaltung) and responsibility as responsiveness in human engagement with the environment and technology, especially in new materialism, posthumanism, actor-network-theory, sociology of practice, Gestalt theory, schema theory, process philosophy, and pragmatism.

WS 2022/23:

Ethnographisch forschen – Technologie/Macht/Gender

SoSe 2022:

Soziologische Theorien: Praxis und Diskurs

WS 2021/22:

Ethnographisch forschen

SoSe 2021:

Soziologische Theorien: Kritik und Gestaltung

WS 2020/21:

Ethnographien alternativer Zukünfte

SoSe 2020:

Soziologische Theorien: Natur und Gesellschaft

Empiriepraktikum: Laborfleisch – Kartographien einer Kontroverse, zusammen mit Prof. Dr. Jörn Lamla

WS 2019/20:

Empiriepraktikum: Laborfleisch – Kartographien einer Kontroverse, zusammen mit Prof. Dr. Jörn Lamla

WS 2018/19:

Tutorium zur Vorlesung: Soziologische Theorien mit Prof. Dr. Jörn Lamla

SoSe 2018:

Tutorium zu Soziologische Theorien: Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft mit Dr. Lars Gertenbach

Texts:

Lamla, Jörn/Roschka, Jakob (2021): Konsum. In: Endreß, Martin/Rampp, Benjamin (Hg.): Handbuch Politische Soziologie. Baden-Baden: Nomos (forthcoming).

Lectures/Workshops:

Roschka, Jakob: „Historische Situierung smarter Elektrifizierung als infrastrukturpolitisches Paradigma“ (“Historical Situating of Smart Electrification as Infrastructural Paradigm“). Presentation at the 62nd German Congress for Geography at the Panel „Geopolitisation of digital infrastructures", Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 22.09.2023.

Roschka, Jakob: "Each World Has its Participation." - Mapping the Social Worlds of Energy System Design in Germany as Contexts of Participation. Panel presentation. STS Conference Graz, Session: "The context-dependency of conflict and participation issues in the energy transition", Graz, 02.-04.05.2022.

Roschka, Jakob: Methods as In/Formation of Practice, Patterns of Response-Ability in the Case of Agile Software Engineering. Workshop presentation. The Un/Making of Forms, Formographic inquiries into practice, accountability, and infra-critique. International workshop organized by Ingmar Lippert and Susann Wagenknecht, Dresden, 02.-03.09.2021.

Kocksch, Laura/Laser, Stefan/Pittroff, Fabian/Roschka, Jakob/Sørensen, Estrid: Inquiring the digital interstice through a data sprint: Ethnographic research where front and back end meet, Workshop. Materialist Informatics Conference. Kassel, 23-25.03.2020.