Paper short abstract:

The panel offers an in-depth discussion of methods and methodologies for studying IT security in STS. We are interested in how the panelists approach IT security from various sides oscillating between inside and outside perspectives, and across disciplinary boundaries.

Paper long abstract:

IT security issues often reach across various disciplines but are a challenging topic for interdisciplinary teams, even in STS. One reason for this is that the current IT security research builds on socio-material orders that are hard to reconcile with a more situated view on both practices and infrastructures.

We ask how STS can approach the topic of IT security and how doing so in turn provokes STS and allows to critically reflect back on STS methods and theories. Based on panelists' talks throughout the session we want to explore the sites where IT security is contested, negotiated, tinkered, or cared for and use these to draft a multiplicity of approaches to IT security in STS. How are STS methods and concepts particularly suited to research the complex phenomenon of IT security? What lessons could be learned from existing research in STS? We ask further how engineers and decision-makers could be recruited as "co-laborators" for an STS inquiry into IT security and how can we formulate such an endeavor. What could a common ground for co-laboration be and what different concerns are part of it?

Closing the session we would like to discuss how to extend our exchange and find an appropriate format of publication.

Panelists are (tbc):

Dr. Katharina Kinder-Kurlanda (GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences)

Andreas Poller (Fraunhofer SIT Darmstadt)

Matt Spencer (Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies | University of Warwick)

Prof. Dr. Estrid Sørensen (Ruhr University Bochum)