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Technical University of Munich

Dr. Paul Trauttmansdorff

Postdoc

Philosophy and History of Science and Technology

Ethical Data Initiative

I completed my first university studies in Philosophy (BA) at the University of Vienna and Socioeconomics (BSc) at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, followed by a MSc in Political Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Upon returning to Vienna, I began my doctoral studies in Science and Technology Studies at the STS Department of the University of Vienna (supervised by Ulrike Felt) and as a fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. My research focused on the imaginaries of future borders and the digitization of Europe’s mobility governance. During my Phd, I received the Marietta-Blau Scholarship from Austria’s Agency of Education and Internationalisation.

After completing my PhD (2022), I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Philosophy and Communication Studies at the University of Bologna, where I was part of the ERC StG Project “Processing Citizenship – Digital registration of migrants as co-production of citizens, territory and Europe” (PI: Prof. Pelizza). In October 2023, I became a Fellow at the European New School of Digital Studies of the European University Viadrina, and subsequently worked as a postdoc at the Chair for Sociology of Technology.

In October 2024 I joined TUM’s Chair of Philosophy and History of Science and Technology (Prof. Sabina Leonelli) and the Ethical Data Initiative (EDI).

  • Imaginaries of data/datafication
  • Data Infrastructures and Practices
  • Technoscientific controversies
  • Borders and Migration Studies
  • Infrastructures and (In)Security

Books 

Journal Articles

  • Trauttmansdorff, Paul. 2025. Against interoperability? Terrains of technopolitical contestation and the remaking of EU border infrastructure. Big Data & Society 12(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517241307909
  • Trauttmansdorff, Paul, and Chiara Loschi. 2025. Interoperability and the Multiple Modes of Ordering in Europe’s Digital Border Regime. International Migration 63(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.70022
  • Hajek, Kim M., Trauttmansdorff, Paul, Leonelli, Sabina, Guttinger, Stephan, and Silvia Milano. 2025. How to Foster Responsible and Resilient Data: The Ethical Data Initiative. Computer 58: 95–99. 10.1109/MC.2024.3522696
  • Trauttmansdorff, Paul, and Kim M. Hajek. 2025. Data shadows: When data become tangible, material, and fragile. Patterns 6(3): 1–3. 10.1016/j.patter.2025.101206
  • Trauttmansdorff, Paul, and Annalisa Pelizza. 2025. From embracement to attachment: Registering people on the move and the couplings of noncitizenship and territory. Environment and Planning C, 0(0): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544251322768
  • Pelizza, Annalisa, Chiara, Loschi, Olivieri, Lorenzo, Trauttmansdorff, Paul, and Wouter Van Rossem. 2024. Manifesto on the Datafication of Mobility Across Borders. Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 10(3): 207–215. https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2023.2831
  • Trauttmansdorff, Paul. 2023. The Fabrication of a Necessary Policy Fiction: The Interoperability ‘Solution’ for Biometric Borders. Critical Policy Studies 17 (3): 428–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2022.2147851
  • Trauttmansdorff, Paul, and Ulrike Felt. 2023. Between Infrastructural Experimentation and Collective Imagination: The Digital Transformation of the EU Border Regime. Science Technology and Human Values 48 (3): 635–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439211057523
  • Trauttmansdorff, Paul. 2022. Borders, Migration, and Technology in the Age of Security: Intervening with STS. TECNOSCIENZA Italian Journal of Science and Technology Studies 13 (2): 133–54. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17584
  • Klimburg-Witjes, Nina, Matthias Leese, and Paul Trauttmansdorff. 2022. Expanding Boundaries: Unmaking and Remaking Secrecy in Field Research. Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences 3 (2): 168–97. https://doi.org/10.1163/25903276-bja10039

Book Chapters

  • Klimburg-Witjes, Nina, and Paul Trauttmansdorff. 2023. “Making Europe through Infrastructures of In/Security. An Introduction.” In Technopolitics and the Making of Europe, edited by Nina Klimburg-Witjes and Paul Trauttmansdorff, 1–18. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003267409-1
  • Trauttmansdorff, Paul. 2017. “The Politics of Digital Borders.” In Border Politics. Defining Spaces of Governance and Forms of Transgressions, edited by Cengiz Günay and Nina Witjes, 107–26. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46855-6_7

Reviews

  • Trauttmansdorff, Paul. 2025. Toward an Anthropology of Screens. Showing and hiding, exposing and protecting. Mauro Carbone and Graziano Lingua. Translated by Sarah De Sanctis. 2023. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Journal of Responsible Technology 21: 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrt.2025.100111
  • Trauttmansdorff, Paul. 2023. Elliott Anthony (2023) Algorithmic Intimacy. The Digital Revolution in Personal Relationships. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. 220 pages. ISBN: 978-1-5095-49818. Science & Technology Studies 36 (2): 78–80. https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.126958

Blog Contributions

  • Hajek, Kim M., Trauttmansdorff, Paul, and Sabina Leonelli. 2025. Understanding Misinformation. International Symposium, 9 December 2024. 4S Backchannels, available: https://4sonline.org/news_manager.php?page=39601
  • Loschi, Chiara, Olivieri, Lorenzo, Pelizza, Annalisa, Trauttmansdorff, Paul, and Wouter Van Rossem. 2023. The Processing Citizenship Final Conference: A Collective Report. Processing Citizenship, available https://processingcitizenship.eu/the-processing-citizenship-final-conference-a-report/
  • Pollozek, Silvan, van der Kist, Jasper, Trauttmansdorff, Paul, Usachova, Olga, Ullrich, Maria, Makrygianni, Vasiliki, Amelung, Nina, and Arely Cruz-Santiago. 2021. A portrait of STS-MIGTEC: An independent network working on migration, technologies and borders. 4S Backchannels, available at https://www.4sonline.org/sts-migtec
  • Trauttmansdorff, Paul, and Nina Klimburg-Witjes. 2020. Making Europe Through Infrastructures of In/Security. Notes from a Virtual Workshop. Blog of the STS Department, available at https://blog.sts.univie.ac.at
  • Trauttmansdorff, Paul. 2018. Why should we study ignorance today? Blog of the STS Department, available at https://blog.sts.univie.ac.at

Podcast Contributions

My research, writing, and review activities have mostly centered on

  • the imaginaries and practices of datafication, particularly their impact on border and mobility regimes;
  • the governance, maintenance and repair work of (data) infrastructures;
  • the use of biometrics across various domains, and their wider social, political, and ethical implications.

Data Matters: Sociotechnical Challenges of European Migration and Border Control (DATAMIG), COST Action No. CA22135 (Working Group 1 member)

STS-MIGTEC Network (Member of the Coordination Committee until 2023)

Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S)

European Association of Science and Technology Studies (EASST)

Science and Democracy Network (SDN)

STS Austria

Research Platform Mobile Cultures and Societies, University of Vienna

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