The first episode of the second season of the podcast of the CRC Affective Society (FU) featured Dr Larissa Vetters and Prof. Olaf Zenker as guest and was called: “In Front of the Law - Feelings and Digitalised Migration Administration", wherein the two shared their research processes in a conversational format with podcast hosts Prof. Cilja Harders and Prof. Jürgen Brokoff.

Vetters and Zenker both work in the field of legal anthropology. Within their project B07 Sentiments of Bureaucracies: Affective Dynamics in the Digital Transformation, they critically examine whether and how bureaucratic sentiments change during the introduction of digital technologies into the administrative process of determining asylum status or providing residence permits.

What kind of affects and emotions are at play during the management of a complex, multi-layered and highly politicized process like migration to Germany? Vetters and Zenker shed light on inner bureaucratic perspectives and their underlying sentiments, encountering “mixed feelings” of programmers and bureaucrats.

Furthermore, the podcast reflects on challenges under pandemic working conditions and raises the question of what happens to the digitisers when they are digitalised.