Volkan Sayman
C03: Doing Mini-publicsResearch Associate
Technische Universität Berlin
BH-5-1 | Room 232
Ernst-Reuter-Platz 1
10587 Berlin
CV
Since 01/2018
Research Assistant in the project „doing mini-publics“ within the Collaborative Research Center (1265) „Re-Figuration of Spaces“ at Technical University Berlin
2015 – 2017
Master’s degree in “Sociology” at Technical University Berlin
2014 – 2015
M.A. “Science Studies” at Humboldt University Berlin (not completed)
Between 2015 to 2018, I worked as a Student Assistant with Dr. Anne K. Krüger and Prof. Norma Möllers at Humboldt University Berlin. We gathered and analysed qualitative and quantitative data on the performance of German universities as employers (2014 until 2015). Further, I supported research questioning Performance Evaluation practices within the field of “Translational Medicine” (2016 until 2017).2010 – 2014
Bachelor Degree in “Social Sciences” at Philipps University Marburg
From 2011 to 2014, I was working as Student Assistant with Prof. Markus Schroer („Sociological Theory“), providing lecture sessions of past and current sociological theory for first year students.
Between 2013 and 2014, I was working as Student Assistant with Prof. Martin Schröder („Sociology of Economics“). We compiled and analysed a data set of female career paths in scientific institutions. Further, I worked with Prof. Schröder’s colleague, Dr. Florian Vietze, doing qualitative analysis on media discourses about social justice issues in Germany, drawing mainly on newspaper articles from the 1950s up to now.
Research Focus
Sociology of science, technology and innovations
Practice Theory, Discourse Analysis, Visual Methods and Ethnography
Critical Transformations of Public Spaces and the Public Sphere
Power and Authority in innovation processes
Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT)
Dissertation
One of the most interesting entry points for understanding contemporary social changes are the shifting of relations between private and public spaces. The sharp modern delineation between a private space of (female) reproduction, leisure time and family life and a public space of (male) work, competition and rational consensus-seeking is under attack. In times of personalized media consumption and full-time spatially independent access to public communication scholars are questioning whether the liberal equation of “private = home” and the “public = what is beyond home” is still a viable empirical distinction. It gets increasingly harder to exclude formerly private issues from public spaces on grounds of claiming that these issues are not addressing the common interests, as it is the case with technologies, sexuality or gender.
Pace, quantity and quality of innovations in technologically advanced societies, urbanization and increasing post-material value orientations are key to the re-ordering of relationships between public and private spaces. These factors, among others, re-order the very conditions of democratic culture and political subjectivity. Generally speaking, these factors are changing the socio-technical infrastructures which help create, separate and stabilize the intersection of public and private spaces.
Autonomous mobility turns out to be a future technology to which a variety transformative claims is being tied: autonomous cars are, among other things, ought to be safer than conventional cars, they are said to be more efficient, more adaptive to changing mobility patterns in urban and rural contexts and finally they promise to need less lanes and parking spaces thus, less urban public space. The spread of such vehicles in everyday usage practices not only depends on their technical feasibility and legal issues. My claim is that research should focus on scenarios of “future cities” which are co-articulated within socio-technical imaginaries of autonomous mobility in the city.
This line of arguments leads to the particular point of interest within my PhD project: In which sense do imagined futures of autonomous mobility imply transformed (infra-)structures of public and private spaces in German cities? Around which “things” do publics articulating these imaginaries assemble? Which are the practices, discourses and materialities with which actors articulate risks and consequences of autonomously mobile futures for German cities? How are subsequent changes for public and private spaces in cities being placed within broader discourses of mobility, energy efficiency, automation and segregation? Are required changes for public spaces in cities built-in in vehicles, testing grounds and the supportive infrastructure? In how far, in turn, does autonomous mobility require the existing structure of urban public space to adjust itself to “technical needs”?
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Sayman, V. (2019): “Ulrich Beck and Bruno Latour inspiring interdisciplinary research on public spheres”. Soziale Welt Special Issue about Ulrich Becks work. (submitted, under review)
Voß, J.-P, Sayman, V., Schritt, J. (in preparation): „Infrastructuring knowledge spaces of politics: Designing networks, platforms and observatories for ‚democratic innovation‘“, European Journal of Political and Cultural Sociology.
Sayman, V., Voß, J.P. , Schritt, J. (in preparation) : “Complex Normativities. A reflexive approach for judging public participation practices”.
Books
Sayman, V. (2019; forthcoming): „Wie wird Öffentlichkeit gemacht? Pragmatistische und anschließende Öffentlichkeitstheorien im Vergleich”. TU-Berlin-Verlag, Berlin. Book, 140 pages.
Presentations
Sayman, V. (2018): “How do experts democratize democracy? How epistemic practices prefigure interactional orders and participant subjectivities”. Eingereichtes und präsentiertes Paper zur “Deliberative Democracy Summer School – Implementing Citizen Deliberation as a Democratic Practice” Abo Akademi in Turku, Finland, 26. -29. Juni 2018. 27 pages
Sayman, V. (2018): “How do experts democratize democracy? How epistemic practices prefigure interactional orders and participant subjectivities”. Revised and presented Paper at „Expectations Towards Citizens in Democratic Innovations – Good, Bad or Just Different?“ at the annual Meeting of the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) 2018 in Hamburg. 27 pages
Sayman, V. (2018): “Comparing the practices of making things public: interactions between self-organized and professionally organized issue publics”. Presented Paper at the “Participatory Spaces in Perspective“-Conference, University of Westminster, London, 5.-7. September.
Sayman, V.; Voß J.-P. (2018): “Doing mini-publics – How shall we study translocal spaces of doing politics?” Presentation at the Panel “Experiments in Democracy” at the General Conference of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST), Lancaster, UK, 25.-28. Juni.
Voß, J.-P., Sayman, V. (2019): “Mobile methods: How planning know-how circulates (deliberative public participation as a case study)”, Panel “Translocal Planning?” at the International Conference “Re-Figuration of Spaces: Mediatization, Mobility, Globalization and Social Dislocation” of the Collaborative Research Centre 1265 “Re-Figuration of Spaces”, TU Berlin, 21 February 2019.
Voß, J.-P, Sayman, V., Schritt, J. (2019): “Infrastructuring knowledge spaces of politics: Designing networks, platforms, and observatories for translocal ‘democratic innovation’”, Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Science and Democracy Network, Harvard University, Boston, 28 August 2019.
Voß, J.-P, Sayman V., Schritt J. (2019): “Infrastructuring knowledge spaces of politics: Designing networks, platforms, and observatories for translocal ‘democratic innovation’”, Paper Presentation at the Open Panel “Knowing Democracy” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social studies of Science (4S) “Innovations, Interruptions, Regenerations”, New Orleans, 4 September 2019.
Working Papers
Sayman, V. (2018): “How do experts democratize participative democracy? How epistemic practices prefigure interactional orders and participant subjectivities”. Working Paper.
Workshops, Organized Panels and Summer Schools
Voß, J.-P. , Birkback, A., Brown, M., Laurent, B., Sayman, V. (2019): “Knowing Democracy” Open Panel at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social studies of Science (4S) “Innovations, Interruptions, Regenerations”, New Orleans, 4th of September 2019 (Panel Organization with Brice Laurent).
Member of the Organizing Committee for the International Summer School “Spaces of Hope: Critical Perspectives on Spatial (Trans)Formations” within the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB 1265) “Re-Figuration of Spaces”, Berlin, 11th to 13th of September 2019.
Workshop “The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse” by Prof. Dr. Reiner Keller, 10th to 11th of January 2019, Berlin.