Profile avatar
robertdorschel.bsky.social
Assistant Professor in Digital Sociology @ University of Cambridge; researching tech workers, digital economy, class, and culture https://research.sociology.cam.ac.uk/profile/dr-robert-dorschel
31 posts 1,230 followers 840 following
Prolific Poster

Our department is hiring for this prestigious professorship! Applications are welcome from scholars working in any area of the discipline. The position offers a competitive salary. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNI980/t... @camsociology.bsky.social

Happy to see this new article published! Written with Anne-Mette Hermans, the article analyzes and theorizes the rise of the cosmetic industry through the novel theoretical framework of enrichment www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Sociology is mostly about choosing whether something is “structured”, “contingent”, or “performed”

Silicon Valley is run by people who genuinely think the world as we know it is going to end in the next few decades. Many also WANT this to happen: they WANT the biological world to be replaced by a new digital world. They WANT "posthumans" to take the place of humans. A 🧵:

Excited to be in Manchester and to attend the annual conference of the British Sociological Association #britsoc25 @bsasocrel.bsky.social At 3.30pm, I‘ll be giving a talk on the tech elite and how they entrepreneur legitimacy

Interesting article on the upper-middle-class and how it has managed to end up under massive pressure in the post-liberal conjuncture www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-wa...

To what extent can tech workers mobilize as part of the broader working class? This is the question I take up in my new paper "Solidarity across the platform: mobilizing high-wage and low-wage workers in the tech sector" -- just out in Work in the Global Economy 1/n

Very happy to say that my article on Musk and Thiel's political theory of the founder (drawing on Lacan on the way) is out with @jcultecon.bsky.social! Strange to see it out there with all what happened in the last year, but it will hopefully make it a good read www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Thanks a lot to @simonkuper.bsky.social & the @financialtimes.com for this close reading of our research article on the economic elites of 16 countries, and for jump-starting the public discussion about it! The paper @bjsociology.bsky.social is avaisble here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Truly fascinating talk by Michèle Lamont today across the issues of recognition, class and social change. Great to have such an inspiring sociologist visiting our department @mlamont.bsky.social @camsociology.bsky.social

Our blog – LSE Inequalities – covers all aspects of inequalities and dividing lines such as class, race and gender. We just published our 100th post 🎉 – @norawaitkus.bsky.social on wealth inequality from a class perspective #LSEInequalitiesBlog

Just out! Article on "Architectures of #assetization: Legacy infrastructures and the configuration of #datafication in UK #highereducation" w/ @jkom.bsky.social & Sam Sellar in New Media & Society #platforms #edtech #digital #bigtech journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

CfP: Veränderungspioniere und Veränderungserschöpfte. Zur Wahrnehmung sozialen Wandels. Auf dem Soziologiekongress im September wollen wir uns mit Wahrnehmungen sozialen Wandels beschäftigten. Einreichungen sind bis 30.04. herzlich willkommen! kongress2025.soziologie.de/fileadmin/us...

🚨 Publication alert 🚨 my paper on ratings and reviews in the gig economy is out in Ethics and Information Technology. I study the ethics of Airbnb’s rating system and how it coordinates trust & power-relations between workers, consumers and the platform itself. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Fantastic, multi-faceted special issue on the phenomenon of tech work and the underexplored segment of high-paid workers in digital capitalism @vni.bsky.social #techworkers www.scienceopen.com/hosted-docum...

(Nearly) new: Global warming as investment climate: green tech and the translation of needs - @robertdorschel.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Hiring again! Lecturer in Sociology. We're looking for someone strongly anchored in sociology through high-profile contributions, and with the ability to appeal to students and colleagues of various methodological orientations. www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Assistant Professorship in Digital Humanities and Film and Screen Studies at Cambridge www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMI593/a...

New Publication 🚨 Why are contemporary societies increasingly looking to private companies to solve climate change? In my latest article, I analyze the rise of green tech firms and the cultural operations driving this shift. Out now in @jcultecon.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New Publication! How do greenhouse gas emissions differ across social classes in the UK? Combining new data with Reckwitz' class theoretical framework, my colleagues @m-lindner.bsky.social, @toni.schuster.bsky.social and me have just published an article on this www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Really exciting to have both @samfriedman.bsky.social and @aaronreeves.bsky.social at today’s Sociology seminar series @camsociology.bsky.social Theoretically and empirically rich talk on how elites in Britain manage to reproduce

The research field around „tech workers“, the high paid professionals in the digital economy, is growing! Glad to see this fascinating piece by Kenzo Seto on the sociotechnical imaginaries of tech workers in the Global South out: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #techworkers #digitalcapitalism

New paper looking at how social class is conceptualised in influential theories of the asset economy. ‘Asset classes? Some reflections on the ‘new class realities’ of rentier capitalism’, Thesis Eleven, 0(0). doi.org/10.1177/0725...

Here's an excellent special issue of SAQ on Impasse, Interregnum, and Transition! Edited by Oded Nir & Brittany Murray, w/essays by Jodi Dean, Phil Wegner, Mathias Nilges, and Jo Littler, among others. I've got a piece in it on ecopoetry and the Anthropocene. read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlant...

Martijn Konings on Joseph Stiglitz: 'Stiglitz’s book is not only an attack on the neoliberal faith in free markets, but an attempt to reclaim the ideal of freedom back from the right.' newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

🎧 Listen to @samfriedman.bsky.social on this @theguardian.com podcast, where he charts the enduring influence of private schools in the making of the British elite and asks whether the Labour government is finally looking to curtail it.

Fantastic research @prakritidasgupta.bsky.social reviewing the mass of literature on platform work resistance - a great resource for future research A Systematic Review on Worker Voice in the Platform Economy: The Constitution of a Grassroots Voice Mechanism onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

"Fiscal Centralization and Inequality in Children's Economic Mobility" New research with @schechtlm.bsky.social @zparolin.bsky.social just out in ASR doi.org/10.1177/0003... #sociology #demography #econsky

Cool to see that my review essay 'Charting the Contours of the Geo-Tech World' is the 9th most-read article in Geopolitics this year. Shoutout also to @geopoliticsjournal.bsky.social for offering this unique format, i.e., discussing multiple books & putting them in a broader intellectual context.

And that, my friend, is part of the reason why you should come to Oslo and learn Multiple Correspondence Analysis in January. But hurry up — the deadline is approaching at a relentless pace! www.uio.no/studier/emne...

Cambridge Sociology has joined BlueSky! Also, we are looking for a new Outreach and Communication Officer for our department

Class consciousness still shapes voting, but in a different way than in the past. That's the key finding of a study with @thomaslux.bsky.social now out in English. We chart how class identity, interests and status link with voting for the left and right in Germany. A🧵 library.fes.de/pdf-files/a-...

The Global Labour University has posted a free Labour History course with lectures and essays by @rickhalpern.bsky.social Peter Cole, Dorothy Sue Cobble, me and others. Check it out.

Later today:

Excited to present my ongoing book project at Nuffield college on Wednesday. Very grateful to @cmonden.bsky.social for the invitation. Hope to see some friendly faces if anyone is in Oxford this week www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

If elites know this (and they very likely do) then it creates what @samfriedman.bsky.social and I have called a 'symbolic market for ordinariness', where those in power struggle to convince others that they are just like them www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

Cool starter pack for anyone interested in #assetization & #financialization

Wow, I am incredibly honoured to receive the AoIR 2024 dissertation award 🎉 This is an amazing recognition from an inspiring community of scholars! Special thanks to the award committee and all the people, inside and outside academia, who supported me along the way!

Great talk by @norawaitkus.bsky.social on why we need more recognition of wealth inequality in class theory and analysis

‘“Immediacy,” Kornbluh asserts, is the hegemonic style of “too late capitalism.” (…) that sucks us into the here and now and inhibits our ability to appreciate the social relations constitutive of everyday life.‘