Dr. Alev Coban

Alev Coban is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Human Geography at Goethe University Frankfurt. In her PhD “Postcolonial Bodies, Machines, and Affects – The Promises and Performances of Technology Development in Kenya”, Alev examined the working conditions in makerspaces and other places of hardware innovation in Kenya. She highlights what affective and socio-material practices are demanded from places, bodies, and machines that are marked as technologically ‘catching-up’ and therefore as peripheral to global technology development. Alev argues that making technologies in Kenya entails collaborative and loving work between co-workers, machines, and material, but also strenuous efforts of positioning within workplace hierarchies, technocapitalism, and colonial legacies.

2021	Coban, Alev and Klara-Aylin Wenten (2021) Who Cares for Agile Work? In/Visibilized Work Practices and Their Emancipatory Potential. In: Nanoethics 15: 57-70. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11569-021-00385-9
2019	Calculative making: The fear of failure in Kenya’s Makerspaces. In: Backchannels - Blog of Society for Social Studies of Science. https://www.4sonline.org/calculative-making-the-fear-of-failure-in-kenyas-makerspaces/
2018	Making Hardware in Nairobi: Between Revolutionary Practices and Restricting Imaginations. In: Journal of Peer Production 12. http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-12-makerspaces-and-institutions/peer-reviewed-papers/making-hardware-in-nairobi/
	Same, same but different: Storytelling of innovative places and practices in Nairobi. In: Engelschalt, J., Maibaum, A., Engels, F., & Odenwald, J. (eds.) Schafft Wissen: Gemeinsames und geteiltes Wissen in Wissenschaft und Technik: Proceedings der 2. Tagung des Nachwuchsnetzwerks „INSIST“; 07.-08. Oktober 2016, München. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-58220-7
2016	iHub Nairobi – Ort des Lernens, Experimentierens und Entwickelns. In: Mars, Elisabeth M. (ed.): African Ways of Life. Münster: Arbeitsstelle WELTBILDER e.V.

2022	Emotions at Work: The Affective Drivers of Technoscientific Workplaces and Futures (Session-Organizer at EASST conference: Politics of technoscientific futures, Madrid)
2021	Postcolonial Bodies, Machines, and Affects – The Promises and Performances of Technology Development in Kenya (Geographisches Kolloquium, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster)
2020	Willkommen in der schönen neuen Arbeitswelt: Emanzipatorische Technologien am Arbeitsplatz? (with Klara-Aylin Wenten at Tagung Neue Kulturgeographie, Bonn) Who Cares for Co-Creation? On Invisibilized Work and Forms of Empowerment at Workplaces of Technology Development (with Klara-Aylin Wenten at 4S/EASST conference: Locating and Timing Matters, Online) “Money dictates tech" – International investment in Kenyan start-ups (Workshop 'Organizational Forms and Landscapes of Cooperation, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung and ZNWU, Online)
2018	"Made in Africa, for Africa" - How to perform poverty by innovating technology in Nairobi (RGS-IBG conference: Decolonising geographical knowledges, London)
	Tech Hustle: Institutionalized hustling at working places of technological innovation (Workshop 'Harnessing the Hustle', British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi)
2016	How to Narrate Innovations: Multiple Stories of iHub in Nairobi („Schafft Wissen“ - Gemeinsames und geteiltes Wissen in Wissenschaft und Technik (INSIST), Munich)
	Multiple stories: Making makerspaces in Nairobi (4S/EASST conference: Science and Technology by other means, Barcelona)
2015	(Un)Fassbar?! - Unterschiedliche Perspektiven auf Materialitäten (Junger Kongress für Geographie (JKG), Berlin)

Wintersemester 2022/23
Seminar ‚Doing Technologies. Practices, Places and Feelings of Technocapitalism' (mit Marc Boeckler, Master Humangeographie)

Sommersemester 2022
Projektseminar ‚Postkoloniale Rassismen: Theorie und eigene Verstrickungen' (mit Mirjam Tutzer, Orientierungsstudium und Bachelor Geographie)

Sommersemester 2021
Seminar '(Post-)Koloniale Geographien' (Bachelor Geographie)

Wintersemester 2020/21
Seminar/Vortragsreihe zur geographischen Berufspraxis

Sommersemester 2020
Seminar '(Post-)Koloniale Geographien' (Bachelor Geographie)

Sommersemester 20191
Seminar '(Post-)Koloniale Geographien' (Bachelor Geographie)

Sommersemester 2017
Seminar '(Post-)Koloniale Geographien' (mit Malve Jacobsen, Bachelor Geographie)

Sommersemester 2016
Seminar 'Geographien des Globalen Südens' (mit Malve Jacobsen, Bachelor Geographie)

Research Interests

Publications

2021	Coban, Alev and Klara-Aylin Wenten (2021) Who Cares for Agile Work? In/Visibilized Work Practices and Their Emancipatory Potential. In: Nanoethics 15: 57-70. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11569-021-00385-9
2019	Calculative making: The fear of failure in Kenya’s Makerspaces. In: Backchannels - Blog of Society for Social Studies of Science. https://www.4sonline.org/calculative-making-the-fear-of-failure-in-kenyas-makerspaces/
2018	Making Hardware in Nairobi: Between Revolutionary Practices and Restricting Imaginations. In: Journal of Peer Production 12. http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-12-makerspaces-and-institutions/peer-reviewed-papers/making-hardware-in-nairobi/
	Same, same but different: Storytelling of innovative places and practices in Nairobi. In: Engelschalt, J., Maibaum, A., Engels, F., & Odenwald, J. (eds.) Schafft Wissen: Gemeinsames und geteiltes Wissen in Wissenschaft und Technik: Proceedings der 2. Tagung des Nachwuchsnetzwerks „INSIST“; 07.-08. Oktober 2016, München. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-58220-7
2016	iHub Nairobi – Ort des Lernens, Experimentierens und Entwickelns. In: Mars, Elisabeth M. (ed.): African Ways of Life. Münster: Arbeitsstelle WELTBILDER e.V.

Conderences/Talks

2022	Emotions at Work: The Affective Drivers of Technoscientific Workplaces and Futures (Session-Organizer at EASST conference: Politics of technoscientific futures, Madrid)
2021	Postcolonial Bodies, Machines, and Affects – The Promises and Performances of Technology Development in Kenya (Geographisches Kolloquium, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster)
2020	Willkommen in der schönen neuen Arbeitswelt: Emanzipatorische Technologien am Arbeitsplatz? (with Klara-Aylin Wenten at Tagung Neue Kulturgeographie, Bonn) Who Cares for Co-Creation? On Invisibilized Work and Forms of Empowerment at Workplaces of Technology Development (with Klara-Aylin Wenten at 4S/EASST conference: Locating and Timing Matters, Online) “Money dictates tech" – International investment in Kenyan start-ups (Workshop 'Organizational Forms and Landscapes of Cooperation, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung and ZNWU, Online)
2018	"Made in Africa, for Africa" - How to perform poverty by innovating technology in Nairobi (RGS-IBG conference: Decolonising geographical knowledges, London)
	Tech Hustle: Institutionalized hustling at working places of technological innovation (Workshop 'Harnessing the Hustle', British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi)
2016	How to Narrate Innovations: Multiple Stories of iHub in Nairobi („Schafft Wissen“ - Gemeinsames und geteiltes Wissen in Wissenschaft und Technik (INSIST), Munich)
	Multiple stories: Making makerspaces in Nairobi (4S/EASST conference: Science and Technology by other means, Barcelona)
2015	(Un)Fassbar?! - Unterschiedliche Perspektiven auf Materialitäten (Junger Kongress für Geographie (JKG), Berlin)

Vita

Teaching