Noortje Marres is Professor in Science, Technology and Society in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick. She is a Visiting Professor at the University of Siegen (Germany) affiliated with the Media of Cooperation Research Programme.
I studied Sociology and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Amsterdam, and did my doctoral research at that same university, and at the Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation, Ecole des Mines (Paris). My work contributes to the interdisciplinary field of Science, Technology and Society (STS) and investigates issues at the intersection of innovation, politics, environment and everyday life: problems of participation in technological societies; the role of mundane objects in contemporary democracy (“material publics”); living experiments; the changing relations between social science and social life in a digital age. I also work on social research methodology, in particular issue mapping, and am interested in developing creative forms of inquiry between the social sciences, computing and the arts.
My PhD Thesis, No Issue, No Public (2005) outlines an issue-oriented concept of public participation in technological societies, drawing on American pragmatism and Actor-Network Theory. My first book, Material Participation : Technology, the Environment and Everyday Publics (2012/2015) builds on field research in ecological demonstration homes, and develops an analysis of material forms of engagement. My latest book, Digital Sociology (Polity, 2017) outlines a critical and creative approach to researching digital societies, and argues that the relations between social research and social life are changing in a digital age. I am currently setting up new research on societal testing of intelligent technologies.
Before joining the University of Warwick, I was a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, Unversity of London, where I also directed the Centre for the Study of Invention and Social Process (CSISP). Between 2009 and 2011, I was a Fellow in Science and Technology Studies at the University of Oxford, in the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (INSIS). I have been a visiting fellow at the Berlin Social Science Centre (2014), and have made study visits to the New School for Social Research (New York) and to TIK, the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, at the University of Oslo.
