Norma Möllers
Associate Professor
Sociology
Queen's University
Ph.D. (Sociology, Universität Potsdam)
Mackintosh-Corry Hall, Room D531
Office Hours By Appointment
My work seeks to understand the roles of science and technology in the making of state power and empire and vice versa in contemporary societies. Drawing on science & technology studies and critical theory approaches, my research investigates how scientists and engineers are mobilized for political purposes, the social and cultural assumptions which inform their activities, and how the products of science and engineering stabilize social order. I mainly study technologies of state power and state violence: security and surveillance technologies, and more recently technologies of algorithmic warfare.
I have joined Queen’s Sociology department in Fall 2015. I've been fortunate to work with some amazing people throughout the past years. Since coming here, I have been a Visiting Fellow at the in Lisbon, the in Berlin, and I was affiliated with the Surveillance Studies Centre while it existed. Prior to coming to Queen’s, I have worked as a researcher at Humboldt-University’s department in Berlin, have been a visiting researcher at , and have worked as a researcher at , Germany, which is also where I obtained my PhD. I studied at Passau University, Germany, and at Sapienza University, Rome.
Necro-extractivism: Algorithmic Warfare, “Kill Clouds”, and the Racial Political Economy of Security Imperialism
(SSHRC Insight Grant, 2026-2030)
Infrastructuring the State: Morality, Materiality, Sovereignty
(SSHRC Insight Grant, 2019-2026)
Cybersecurity and the Making of 'Digital Territory'
(SSHRC Insight Development Grant, 2017-2019)
I supervise students broadly in the area of science & technology studies (STS). I'm particularly interested in supervising students who want to work on questions of infrastructure and social order, technologies of state violence, infrastructures of empire, techno-politics, the role of science and engineering for state or market power, and science, technology & social inequality. If you're a prospective PhD student and you're interested in working with me, I'm best able to supervise you if you use qualitative approaches, and if you work broadly within the theoretical traditions of STS. If you're not sure if I'm the right person to supervise you, you're welcome to send me an email and we'll talk.
You can find a full list of publications in my CV. Most of my publications are available open access.