Research
Digital platforms and algorithms increasingly influence how we work, what political polls we read, whom we trust, and even who we fall in love with. My research sheds light on the social codes of those in charge of programming and designing the digital technologies that shape our social lives. Through a cultural sociological lens, I have inquired into the repertoires and subjectivities of so-called ‘tech workers’ in Germany and the US. Thus far, scholars interested in the nexus of work and digitalisation have primarily focused on highly-precarious groups of workers, such as gig and crowd workers. By analysing the rise of tech workers, I seek to contribute to a relational understanding of work and class in digital capitalism.
Book
2025
Dorschel, Robert: The Social Codes of Tech Workers (under contract with MIT Press, Labor and Technology Series).
Articles
2023
Dorschel, Robert: Middle-Class Responses to Climate Change: An Analysis of the Ecological Habitus of Tech Workers. Current Sociology, online first, 1-18.
2022
Dorschel, Robert: Reconsidering Digital Labour: Bringing Tech Workers into the Debate. New Technology, Work and Employment, 37(2), 288-307.
2022
Dorschel, Robert: A New Middle-Class Fraction with a Distinct Subjectivity. Tech Workers and the Transformation of the Entrepreneurial Self. The Sociological Review, 70(6), 1302-1320.
2021
Dorschel, Robert / Brandt, Philipp: Professionalisierung mittels Ambiguität. Die diskursive Konstruktion von Data Scientists in Wirtschaft und Wissenschaft. Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 50(3-4), 193-210.
2021
Allmendinger, Jutta / Dorschel, Robert: Der Raum des Möglichen. Haben Frauen die Wahl?, Kursbuch, 207, 61-72.
2021
Dorschel, R.: “Data Science“ Analyse einer emergierenden Profession mittels einer Verknüpfung von Diskurs- und Feldtheorie. Soziologie, 50(1), 94-102.
Book Review Essay
2021
Dorschel, Robert: Contours of the Networked Self. New Media & Society, 23(1), 193-198.
Book Chapters
2020
Dorschel, Robert: A Field Theoretical Discovery of the Tourism Industry. In: Pietzcker, Dominik/Vaih-Baur, Christina: Ökonomische und Soziologische Tourismustrends. Strategien und Konzepte im globalen Destinationsmarketing. Springer, Wiesbaden, pp. 29-44.
Book Chapters
2019
Dorschel, Robert/Allmendinger, Jutta (2019): Über die sozialen Fesseln unserer Sprache. In: Eichinger, Ludwig / Plewnia, Albrecht (Hrsg.): Neues vom heutigen Deutsch. Empirisch – methodisch – theoretisch. Jahrbuch des Instituts für Deutsche Sprache 2018. Berlin / Boston: de Gruyter, pp. 313-23.