Anna Oechslen
Research Associate | Economy and Civil Society

Anna Oechslen joined the Research Area „Economy and Civil Society” at IRS in November, 2017. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences at Humboldt University, Berlin and spent a term abroad at the University of Sussex in Great Britain. Her Master’s degree is also from Humboldt University in Modern South and Southeast Asia Studies. Before working at IRS, she was a research assistant at the chair of Society and Transformation at Humboldt University’s Institute for Asian and African Studies and taught a seminar there on the city as a ‘gendered space’ in summer 2017. Her main research interests are the interrelation of material and virtual spaces and subversive media practices.
Since April 2020, she has also taken over the role of equal opportunity officer at the IRS.

Projects

Ongoing Lead Projects

The lead project focalizes digital online platforms as well as their relevance for design processes in the fashion industry. Thus, it addresses the question, to what extent creative collaboration can be digitalized. All platforms have in common that they enact specific interfaces between the "concrete" and the "virtual" world, at which human actions are translated into data and vice versa. The lead project analyses how different specialized digital platforms are used in design processes, and which spatial patters and divisions of labour in creative work emerge as a consequence. The advance of digital platforms into a formerly more analogue industry like fashion bears the potential to fundamentally change spatial arrangements of creativity-based value creation, to the benefit or at the expense of established creative centres. more info

The lead project of the research focus "Economy and Civil Society" addresses profound transformation processes in knowledge and innovation societies, which in turn are characterised by disruptive events. The lead project "Post-Office" aims to understand the dynamics of change in knowledge-generating cooperation with its disruptive elements and to discuss resulting consequences for urban and rural regions. more info

Ongoing Qualification Projects

In her dissertation project, Anna Oechslen studies how graphic designers in India navigate their everyday work practices using so-called crowdwork platforms. These online platforms play an increasing role in mediating work relations, providing an infrastructure to connect workers and clients on a global scale. Platform workers perform a lot of invisible work to make and sustain connections in a context where hardly anything is institutionalised. more info

Selected Publications by Year

2022
Ibert, O., Oechslen, A., Repenning, A., & Schmidt, S. (2022, Mar 14). Geht regional auch digital? Handlungsansätze zur Gestaltung von regionalen digitalen Plattformen. Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung. http://hdl.handle.net/10419/251348
Ibert, O., Oechslen, A., Repenning, A., & Schmidt, S. (2022). Platform Ecology: A User-centric and Relational Conceptualization of Online Platforms. Global Networks, 22(3), 564-579. https://doi.org/10.1111/glob.12355
2020
Oechslen, A. (2020). Grenzenlose Arbeit? Eine Exploration der Arbeitskulturen von Crowdwork. In D. Eckhardt, S. May, M. Röthl, & R. Tischberger (Eds.), Digitale Arbeitskulturen: Rahmungen, Effekte, Herausforderungen (pp. 83-94). (Berliner Blätter; Vol. 82).. https://doi.org/10.18452/22135

Selected Publications by Type

Journal Article
Ibert, O., Oechslen, A., Repenning, A., & Schmidt, S. (2022). Platform Ecology: A User-centric and Relational Conceptualization of Online Platforms. Global Networks, 22(3), 564-579. https://doi.org/10.1111/glob.12355
Oechslen, A. (2019). "Rage against the Cage": Raum einnehmen als feministische Protestpraxis. Gender Bulletin, (45), 27-45. https://www.gender.hu-berlin.de/de/publikationen/gender-bulletin-broschueren/bulletin-texte/texte-45/bulletin_texte_45.pdf
Contribution to Anthology
Oechslen, A. (2020). Grenzenlose Arbeit? Eine Exploration der Arbeitskulturen von Crowdwork. In D. Eckhardt, S. May, M. Röthl, & R. Tischberger (Eds.), Digitale Arbeitskulturen: Rahmungen, Effekte, Herausforderungen (pp. 83-94). (Berliner Blätter; Vol. 82).. https://doi.org/10.18452/22135
Expertise / Position Paper / Policy Paper
Ibert, O., Oechslen, A., Repenning, A., & Schmidt, S. (2022, Mar 14). Geht regional auch digital? Handlungsansätze zur Gestaltung von regionalen digitalen Plattformen. Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung. http://hdl.handle.net/10419/251348

Talks

2022
It's like Shooting in the Dark. Agency and Uncertainty in Gig Work

ReWorking Work: Labour and Livelihoods in the Global South

June/29/2022
Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

It's like Shooting in the Dark. Agency and Uncertainty in a Global Assemblage

6th Global Conference on Economic Geography 2022

June/07/2022
Trinity College und University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

2021
Creative digipreneurs and socio-technical niches: work practices of entrepreneuring in a platform mediated environment

On-/Offline Interferences. Digitalisation and Socio-Spatial Transformations

November/16/2021
IRS, Erkner (digital), Germany

Platform Ecology: A User-centric and Relational Conceptualization of Online Platforms

On-/Offline Interferences. Digitalisation and Socio-Spatial Transformations

November/15/2021
IRS, Erkner (digital), Germany

Platform Ecology: A User-centric and Relational Conceptualization of Online Platforms

II Digital Geographies Conference (Virtual): Critical Perspectives on the Platform Economy

October/29/2021
Lissabon, Lissabon, Portugal

Creative digipreneurs and connective media platforms: practices of socio-technical niche construction on and beyond Instagram

Digital Geographies Conference

October/28/2021
Virtual conference, University of Lisbon, Portugal

Aligning Relations - Work and Life in Seamful Spaces

RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2021

September/03/2021
virtuell, London, United Kingdom

Creative digipreneurs and socio-technical niches: work practices of entrepreneuring in a platform mediated environment

37th European Group of Organisation Studies Colloquium (EGOS)

July/10/2021
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), online, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Making Long Distance Work - Reflections on Studying Everyday Practices in On-/Offline Workplaces

Jahrestreffen des AK Labour Geography 2021

February/11/2021
Online

2020
Shooting in the Dark: Dealing with Uncertainty in a Digital Work Environment

Swiss Geoscience Meeting

November/07/2020
ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

Standing out in the crowd - performing identities in global platform labour

16th Conference: European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)

July/22/2020
Lisbia (online), Lisboa, Portugal

2019
Grenzenlose Möglichkeiten? Über die Fortsetzung globaler Hierarchien in der Infrastruktur von Crowdwork-Plattformen

Deutscher Kongress für Geographie 2019

September/28/2019
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Kiel, Germany

2018
Global Platform Labour - Negotiating the Value of Work in a Transcultural Space

Reshaping Work in the Platform Economy

October/25/2018
The Student Hotel, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Global Platform Labour - Negotiating the Value of Work in a Digital Age

Sommerschule Gender and Space

September/11/2018
Haus für Bildung & Begegnung, Herzberg, Switzerland