Hannah Rotthaus
Hannah Rotthaus
Abstract
People in prison in Germany are largely offline. This empirical doctoral project examines how different actors negotiate digitality in prison, what future scenarios they create and how these currently affect digitalisation in the prison system. Participant observation and qualitative interviews are used to analyse how inmates experience restricted access to digitality and everyday offline life in prison. In addition, the question of what positions prisoners, prison staff, specialist staff for digitalisation and other stakeholders take in shaping future (non-)digitality in prisons will be explored. The negotiations of paradigms inherent to the field such as resocialisation, security and punishment will also be examined.
Short biography
since 10/2021
Scholarship holder in the MWK doctoral programme 'Shaping the Future. Transformation of the Present through Scenarios of Digitalisation' at the University of Oldenburg
2019 - 2021
Research assistant at the Institute for Empirical Cultural Studies at the University of Hamburg
2014 - 2018
M.A. Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
2014 - 2016
Student assistant at the Department of Cultural Anthropology / Folklore Studies at the University of Bonn
2010 - 2014
B.A. German Studies, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies (profile: Folklore/Cultural Anthropology) at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Teaching
The Future is Now? Future as a cultural anthropological field of research. Summer term 2024 at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Institute Colloquium: Behind Closed Doors? Empirical approaches, methodological reflections and ethical implications on fields that are difficult to access in winter semester 2021/22 at the University of Hamburg
Gender and digital technologies in summer semester 2021 at Universität Hamburg
Gender and digital technologies in winter semester 2020/21 at Universität Hamburg
Introduction to academic work and research-based learning in winter semester 2020/21 at Universität Hamburg
Introduction to academic work and research-based learning in winter semester 2019/20 at Universität Hamburg
Tutorial: Productions of creative spaces in winter semester 2014/15 at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Publications
Who owns the time? Ethnographic approaches to experiences of time in detention. In: Aksoy, Filiz et al. (eds.): Shaping the Future. Positionierungen zur Realitätsmacht gegenwärtiger Zukünfte (in the editorial process).
(together with Hannah Kanz): NO CONNECTION AVAILABLE. A dialogue on the exploration of voluntary and forced offline existence. In: Sabine Eggmann/Martina Röthl/Barbara Sieferle (eds.): ERFAHRUNG - Empirisch-kulturwissenschaftliche Reichweiten. Münster 2025 (in the editing process).
(together with Lara Hansen): Feminist critique of science and the necessity of alliances in everyday research - a commentary. In: Hamburg Journal for Cultural Anthropology 14/2022.
Social inequalities after prison release. The aspiration of future within permanent liminality. In: Cultural Analysis 20/1 (2022). (Response to Sieferle, Barbara: Becoming an "Ex-Con." When Ritual Fails and Liminality Endures. In: Cultural Analysis 20 (2022/1), pp. 53-76).
Prison rallies as a practice of solidarity during the pandemic. In: Cuckoo. Notes on Everyday Culture 2/2021, pp. 20-23.
Negotiations of contraception in the context of digital introspection. Hamburg Journal for Cultural Anthropology 11 (2020).
"Your baby is as long as a romaine lettuce." Everyday Functions and Meanings of Pregnancy Apps. In: Everyday worlds. Bonn Perspectives on Cultural Analysis (2018).
Rituals in Bonn cultural anthropology/folklore. Seminar rituals in teaching, learning and life. In: Katrin Bauer/Lina Franken (eds.): Spaces | Things | People. Eine Bonner Kulturwissenschaft im Spiegel ihrer Narrative (Bonner kleine Reihe zur Alltagskultur 10). Münster/New York 2015, pp. 91-107
Review of: Sänger, Eva: Becoming a parent between "baby television" and medical surveillance. An ethnography of prenatal ultrasound examinations. Bielefeld 2020, published in: Bavarian Yearbook for Folklore.
Lectures
Access denied? Insights into negotiations of digitality in prison. Institute Colloquium "Dark Anthropology revisited" at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology. Georg August University Göttingen, 22 May 2024.
Digital prison or 'offline detention'? Negotiations of future digitality in prison. 30th conference of the ÖGEKW: "Alltage und Kultur/en der Digitalität: (Empirisch-) Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf den soziokulturellen Wandel". Alpen-Adria-University Klagenfurt, 20 May 2023.
Digitalisation in the penal system: Possibilities and limits of critical knowledge production in closed fields. Workshop "Public discourses on new technologies and the role of EKW/EE/KA". Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, 16 February 2023.
The Path into the Closed Field: Insights into the Ethnographic Research of Digitisation Processes in Prison. 16th DGEKW doctoral candidate conference: "Zwischen Nähe, Distanz und allen Stühlen - Fragen der Repräsentation und Ethik im Forschungsprozess". Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 05 November 2022.
(Re)ways into and through the doctorate. Online lecture series: Meet the Alumni. What comes after graduation? Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, 11 January 2022.
Self-tracking between self-determination, optimisation and care using the example of cycle apps. 33rd Student Conference of the German Society for Folklore Studies (dgv): "SEX.SEX.SEX. Cultural science highlights and abysses", University of Hamburg, 15 May 2021.
Feminist critique of science and the necessity of alliances. 33rd student conference of the German Society for Folklore Studies (dgv): "SEX.SEX.SEX. Kulturwissenschaftliche Höhepunkte und Abgründe", University of Hamburg, 13 May 2021 (together with Lara Hansen).
Poster presentation: Pregnancy prevention in the context of digital self-observation. 17th efas symposium: "Shaping or being shaped? Perspectives of feminist economics on digitalisation", Berlin University of Applied Sciences (HTW), 06.12.2019.
Other scientific activities
Member of the Graduate School for Social Sciences and Humanities (3GO)
Member of the German Society for Empirical Cultural Studies (DGEKW)
Member of the research network "Everyday Life and Technology"
Co-organiser: Digital Futures in the Making: Imaginaries, Politics, and Materialities.
9th DGEKW Conference of the Section "Digitisation in Everyday Life" of the German Association of Cultural Anthropology and Folklore Studies (DGEKW), Institute of Anthropological Studies in Culture and History, University of Hamburg, https://www.kulturwissenschaften.uni-hamburg.de/ekw/forschung/digiekw-conference-22.html