Short Bio
Kristiane Fehrs has been part of the RTG Fixing Futures since May 2025. She holds an MA in European Ethnology from Humboldt University Berlin and a BA in Metropolitan Culture from HafenCity University Hamburg. From 2023 to 2025, she was a research associate at the Institute of Sociology, Chair of Micro-Sociology and Techno-Social Interaction, at the Technical University of Dresden.

Project description
Hydrogen is portrayed as a key element in the efforts to decarbonize Germany’s industry and energy system. However, skepticism remains regarding the success of implementing hydrogen and hydrogen technologies on a large scale. In her research project, Kristiane aims to critically explore this tension, focusing on the scientific, economic, and political practices that shape what she calls “the promise of hydrogen.” She pays particular attention to the ways this promise materializes at concrete sites and investigates the kinds of socio-material (re)orderings it entails, accounting for the fact that even if green hydrogen technologies for now only exist in images, calculations, on websites, in press releases and policy papers, they are neither placeless nor immaterial. In this way, the research project explores how sociotechnical imaginaries shape infrastructural and spatial politics.