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Catharina Dietrich

c.dietrich@em.uni-frankfurt.de

Short Vita
I currently work as a research assistant in the DFG-funded project “Tracing Data Politics” that investigates data-related practices and politics in the context of a Verkehrswende in the city of Frankfurt. I graduated with a M.A. in Science and Technology Studies (STS) at the Goethe University Frankfurt. For my B.A. I studied Cultural Anthropology at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz with Public Law as my minor.

Project Description
The project “Tracing Data Politics” focuses on the role of digital data in negotiations about a Verkehrswende in the city of Frankfurt am Main. Verkehrswende is a multilayered term that encompasses contemporary shifts in policies and practices of mobility and traffic in Germany. The project explores how traffic-related data is generated, processed, and utilized by various actors in the city. It thus aims to ethnographically trace the processes through which data becomes relevant in diverse contexts, not only for the city administration and its partners but also for civic actors like initiatives and coalitions. The concept of „data politics“ is central to our research, addressing both the using of data to generate evidence for specific political agendas and the inherent politics embedded in the generation, processing, and communication of data.  The case study that I conduct focuses on actors of the civic society and traces particularly their data practices and their relations with all kinds of actors in the city with regard to Verkehrswende data politics. In the project we employ and develop a broad mix of methods for a more-than-digital ethnography.