Annalisa Pelizza's research articulates a dialogue between social studies of science and technology (STS), studies of information systems and data infrastructures, and political studies. In particular, over the years AP has conducted research on:
- Governance of and by technology;
- Sociotechnical aspects of data infrastructures and information systems, including ontologies and interoperability;
- Science and Technology Studies, also in their dialogue with international security studies;
- Ethnographic, digital and mixed methods for the study of the production and use of artifacts and infrastructures;
- Transformation of institutions inherited from Modernity by information infrastructures (see the concept of "Vectorial Glance");
- Social impact of data infrastructures on populations, society and institutions, also in historical perspective (see the concept of "Alterity Processing");
- Studies on online sociality, including network cultures and digital communities.
AP's research has been supported by funding programs for excellent research, at a national (e.g., Paris Institute of Advanced Studies) and European level (e.g., Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions, European Research Council).
Among the projects currently underway, we mention
Processing Citizenship (http://processingcitizenship.eu), funded by the European Research Council:
How does migration change Europe? This question can be answered legally and politically, as most policy makers, sociologists and journalists do. Or, it can be answered technically: how do data infrastructures and practices for migration management shape Europe while they process Alterity?
Current migration waves are changing not only European policies, but also the way knowledge about individuals, institutions and space is produced. Interoperable data systems are key enablers of this knowledge. They materialize security, humanitarian, administrative and technical dynamics that compete to define what “alterity”, “citizenship”, “state” and “Europe” are. This is the main insight of Processing Citizenship. Digital registration of migrants as co-production of citizens, territory and Europe, a five-year research program involving a team made of ethnographers of technology, software developers and political sociologists.
Thanks to the support of an [https://erc.europa.eu/] (2017-22), we are studying registration and identification of third-country nationals in Europe as inter-governmental, supra-national, socio-technical practices. Such practices challenge our established notions of “alterity”, “citizenship”, “state”, “Europe” and “territory”. This evidence raises pressing technical and crucial long-term issues.
