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Presentations & Lectures

DGSKA-Conference 2021: „Worlds. Zones. Atmospheres. Seismographies of the Anthropocene“

Dr Timm Sureau, Prof. Olaf Zenker and Thomas Götzelmann as speakers and discussants at the DGSKA-Conference in 2021

Exploring "Worlds. Zones. Atmospheres. Seismographies of the Anthropocene", the German Society for Social and Cultural Anthropology (DGSKA) and the University of Bremen invited researchers between 27 and 30 September 2021 to contribute to a discussion on the basis of the critical examination of the concept of the Anthropocene.
Dr Timm Sureau, Prof. Olaf Zenker and Thomas Götzelmann represented the project B07 Sentiments of Bureaucracies: Affective Consequences of the Digital Transformation in German Migration Administration.
Leading the panel together with Julia Eckert, Olaf Zenker encouraged discourse by centring the discussion "Towards a Concept of Justice for the Anthropocene".
Thomas Götzelmann, Timm Sureau and Andrea Behrends held the panel "In/visible effects of rhizomatous digitalization in economic margins and state administrations," which examined central aspects of the project B07 from the perspective of other research projects.

CRC Annual Conference 2021: „Diversity Affects Troubling Institutions”

Dr Larissa Vetters and Prof. Olaf Zenker as guest lecturers at the CRC conference Affective Societies 2021

The CRC conference on the topic of "Diversity Affects Troubling Institutions" took place online on 28 and 29 May 2021. Within the frame of the panel question “how does affect work”, Larissa Vetters and Olaf Zenker introduced their current research project with a presentation on "Affective Digital Bureaucracies: Digitised Diversity and its Affective Afterlives in the Administration of Migration in Germany".
The project focuses on the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and asks how this authority domesticates plurality. This question was examined on the one hand, in relation to representation as a specifically institutionalised form of diversity and, on the other hand, in terms of the processing of diversity in decisions on the legal status of asylum seekers at the BAMF.
On a larger scale, the research project investigates how bureaucratic sentiments and their normative regimes of meaning-making within state authorities emerge and interact in the current digital transformation of German migration management.

ASA-Panel 2021: “Rhizomes of digitalisation: bureaucratic sentiments and redistributed accountability”

Thomas Götzelmann and Dr Larissa Vetters as lecturers at the ASA Conference 2021

The Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews hosted the 2021 conference of the association of Social Anthropologists of the UK on the topic of ‘responsibility’ from 29 March to 2 April (online).
Bringing together international perspectives on the digitisation of state bureaucracies, Thomas Götzelmann and Larissa Vetters, on behalf of Dr Timm Sureau, held the panel "Rhizomes of digitalisation: bureaucratic sentiments and redistributed accountability" on 1 April 2021.

SDAC-Guest lecture 2021: „(Digital) networks of decision-making in Germany's migration administration“

Dr Timm Sureau and Thomas Götzelmann as guest lecturers at the Standards of Decision-Making Across Cultures (SDAC) lecture series at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in 2021

On 14 January 2021, Thomas Götzelmann and Dr Timm Sureau represented the project B07 Sentiments of Bureaucracies: Affective Dynamics in the Digital Transformation of German Immigration Management with a guest lecture entitled "(Digital) networks of decision-making in Germany's migration administration" as part of the SDAC Lecture Series 2021.
During this lecture, the presenters traced processes of (re)programming bureaucratic software in the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and explored BAMF role regarding legal status determination within a larger network of bureaucratic organisations. In particular, the strong expansion of the BAMF's digital infrastructures after the so-called "migration crisis 2015/16" and the new networks of digitally supported decision-making within the German migration administration were taken into consideration. The lecture offered a zoom into the processes of digital infrastructure development, with a focus on internal bureaucratic perspectives.

„Pandemic Cooperation: Media and Society in Times of Corona” at the University of Siegen

Dr Timm Sureau speaks at the conference „Pandemic Cooperation: Media and Society in Times of Corona” at the University of Siegen in 2020

Timm Sureau contributed to the discussion by sharing his „think peace on Germany’s Corona-Warn-App“. Following the development and release of the App, Sureau draws parallels between this digitalisation process and the recent digitisation efforts of administrative structures by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). The latter issue forms the search subject of B07 Sentiments of Bureaucracies: Affective Dynamics in the Digital Transformation of German Immigration Management.

EASA-Conference 2020: „New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe“

Dr Larissa Vetters and Prof. Olaf Zenker as lecturers at the EASA-Conference 2020 „New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe“

Within the framework of the panel „Politicized bureaucrats in and beyond Europe: conflicting loyalties, professionalism and the law in the making of public services”, Dr Larissa Vetters and Prof. Olaf Zenker presented initial reflections and findings on the question of “Conflicting sentiments of bureaucracies: public servants in and against the affective digital bureaucracies of Germany's new migration management”. The event took place at the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)conference, between 21st and 24th of July 2020.