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Prof. Dr. Stephan Scheel

21335 Lüneburg, Universitätsallee 1, C.5.208
Fon +49.4131.677-2039, stephan.scheel@leuphana.de
Professor, Professorship of Political Sociology

Table of contents for this page

Vita

Stephan Scheel is Professor of Political Sociology at Leuphana University Lüneburg. His research interests lie at the intersection of border and migration studies, citizenship studies, critical security studies, and science and technology studies. He is an expert in the field of biometric border control.

Academic Career

  • since 2022: Professor of Political Sociology at Leuphana
  • 2019-2022: Junior professor at the Institute of Sociology, University of Duisburg-Essen (Transnational Cooperation and Migration Research)
  • 2017-2018: Post-Doc in the research project "Processing Citizenship" at the University of Twente, Netherlands
  • 2014-2017: Post-Doc in the research project "ARITHMUS - How Data Make a People" at Goldsmith College, University of London
  • 2014: PhD in Political and International Studies at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK
  • 2010: Magister Artium in Political Science at the University of Hamburg, Germany

Selected Awards

Projects

  1. EU COST Action on "Data Matters: Sociotechnical Challenges of European Migration and Border Control (DATAMIG)”
    Stephan Scheel (Project manager, academic)
    →

    Project: Research

  2. Doing Digital Identities
    Stephan Scheel (Project manager, academic) , Salah El-Kahil (Project staff) , Oisin O'Brien (Project staff) , Laura Lambert (Project staff) , Sindhunata Hargyono (Project staff)
    →

    Project: Research

View all projects

Publications

Books and anthologies

  1. Data practices: making up a European people
    Evelyn Ruppert (Editor) , Stephan Scheel (Editor) , 2021 London , 368 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Book › Research

  2. Autonomy of migration?: Appropriating mobility within biometric border regimes
    Stephan Scheel (Author) , 2019 , 230 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Monographs › Research › peer-review

View all publications

Journal contributions

  1. Regimes of Proof: On Contested Identities in Border and Migration Control
    Stephan Scheel (Author) , Kelly Bescherer (Author) , 01.11.2025 , in: International Migration, 63, 6 , 12 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

  2. Re-bordering life and labor during the COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives from Latin America and the Caribbean
    Soledad Álvarez Velasco (Author) , Nicholas De Genova (Author) , Stephan Scheel (Author) , 27.09.2025 , in: Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space , 17 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Other (editorial matter etc.) › Research

  3. Migrant struggles and moral economies of subversion: mimicry and opacity
    Stephan Scheel (Author) , 01.05.2025 , in: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 51, 10 , p. 2648-2667 , 20 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

  4. The Deportation Gap as a Statistical Chimera: How Nonknowledge Informs Migration Policies
    Stephan Scheel (Author) , 01.04.2025 , in: Geopolitics, 30, 3 , p. 1028-1050 , 23 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

  5. Playing dirty: The shady governance and reproduction of migrant illegality
    Stephan Scheel (Author) , 01.01.2025 , in: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 51, 2 , p. 464-482 , 19 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

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Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

  1. Introduction: The Politics of Making Up a European People
    Stephan Scheel (Author) , Evelyn Ruppert (Author) , 02.11.2021 London , p. 1-28 , 28 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Chapter › Research

  2. Data Practices
    Stephan Scheel (Author) , Evelyn Ruppert (Author) , 02.11.2021 London , p. 29-48 , 20 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Chapter › Research

  3. Migrants: Omitting and Recalibrating
    Stephan Scheel (Author) , Funda Ustek-Spilda (Author) , 02.11.2021 London , p. 125-164 , 40 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Chapter › Research

  4. Foreigners: Inferring and Assigning
    Stephan Scheel (Author) , Francisca Grommé (Author) , 02.11.2021 9781912685851 , p. 165-204 , 40 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Chapter › Research › peer-review

  5. Conclusion: The Politics of Data Practices
    Stephan Scheel (Author) , Evelyn Ruppert (Author) , 02.11.2021 London , p. 269-303 , 35 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Chapter › Research › peer-review

View all publications

Activities

  1. Visions of Seamless Travel: (En)Countering Camouflaged Sovereignty at the Frictionless Border
    Stephan Scheel (Speaker)

    Activity: Conference Presentations › Research

  2. The Autonomy of Citizenship – Learning from the appropriation of national ID cards in Malawi’s borderlands
    Stephan Scheel (Speaker)

    Activity: Conference Presentations › Research

  3. The Autonomy of Citizenship - Learning from the appropriation of national ID cards in the Malawian borderlands
    Stephan Scheel (Speaker)

    Activity: Conference Presentations › Research

  4. Deferred Citizenship: obligatory passage points, disrupted infrastructures, surrogate papers and cruel optimism in digitized birth registration in Sierra Leone
    Stephan Scheel (Speaker)

    Activity: talk or presentation in privat or public events › Research

  5. Shifting Regimes of Proof: On the Contested Politics of Identification in Border and Migration Management
    Stephan Scheel (Speaker) , Kelly Bescherer (Speaker)

    Activity: Conference Presentations › Research

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Prizes

  1. Elected Member of the Global Young Faculty VII (MERCUR foundation)
    (Recipient) ,

    Prize: external Prizes, scholarships, distinctions, appointments › Transfer

  2. Michael Nicholson Thesis Prize of the British International Studies Association (BISA)
    (Recipient) ,

    Prize: external Prizes, scholarships, distinctions, appointments › Research

  3. PhD-scholarship
    (Recipient) ,

    Prize: external Prizes, scholarships, distinctions, appointments › Education

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Courses

Research Methods for Digital Media Studies - Stream A
Stephan Scheel, Vera Tollmann
Building on Leuphana Semester’s foregoing general introduction into research methods, this course offers further insights into methods that are crucial for studying digital media. The course starts from the observation that students and researchers alike often find it challenging to develop methods that allow to capture practices, content and aesthetics of “the digital” in contemporary media. One issue in the study of digital media is that the production and circulation of digital data is often “black boxed” and that we find it difficult to investigate what is happening “behind the screen”. For example, users themselves often do not know what data and metadata are being collected and stored by platforms and telecom providers, and to what effect, and what proprietary algorithms are facilitating processes of data production and analysis. Other important research topics concern the question how the design of digital devices and interfaces facilitates certain actions while foreclosing others, thus shaping user behavior and information flows. Hence, students and researchers of digital media always need to reflect on the following questions: What kind of information do I need to answer my research question? Which method(s) will allow me to gather this information? How will I have to adapt my method to the context under study in order to make it work? In how far are classical methods of social scientific research still useful for studying digital media? What are their limitations and constraints? In which research contexts are digital methods useful, valid or limited?

In each session of the seminar, we focus on one method. These include inter alia: object analysis; the use of AI-tools for studies and research; qualitative interviews; participant observations, visual methods and digital ethnography. Each method will be introduced and discussed based on short presentations and shared readings. Based on these readings and discussions, there will be micro-exercises allowing students to gain an understanding of a method via the experience of performing it.
Next appointment:
Wednesday, 2026-12-02 at 09:45
Room: HMS
Research Methods for Digital Media Studies - Stream B
Stephan Scheel, Vera Tollmann
Building on Leuphana Semester’s foregoing general introduction into research methods, this course offers further insights into methods that are crucial for studying digital media. The course starts from the observation that students and researchers alike often find it challenging to develop methods that allow to capture practices, content and aesthetics of “the digital” in contemporary media. One issue in the study of digital media is that the production and circulation of digital data is often “black boxed” and that we find it difficult to investigate what is happening “behind the screen”. For example, users themselves often do not know what data and metadata are being collected and stored by platforms and telecom providers, and to what effect, and what proprietary algorithms are facilitating processes of data production and analysis. Other important research topics concern the question how the design of digital devices and interfaces facilitates certain actions while foreclosing others, thus shaping user behavior and information flows. Hence, students and researchers of digital media always need to reflect on the following questions: What kind of information do I need to answer my research question? Which method(s) will allow me to gather this information? How will I have to adapt my method to the context under study in order to make it work? In how far are classical methods of social scientific research still useful for studying digital media? What are their limitations and constraints? In which research contexts are digital methods useful, valid or limited?

In each session of the seminar, we will focus on one method. These include inter alia: object analysis; the use of AI-tools for studies and research; qualitative interviews; participant observation, visual methods and digital ethnography. Each method will be introduced and discussed based on short presentations and shared readings. Based on these readings and discussions, there will be micro-exercises allowing students to gain an understanding of a method via the experience of performing it.
Next appointment:
Wednesday, 2026-12-02 at 14:00
Room: HMS
The Politics of the Performative: Austin, Butler, Callon and Beyond
Stephan Scheel
Performativity belongs to one of the most prominent concepts in cultural studies and the social sciences more generally. In a nutshell, performativity refers to the idea that discourses, speech acts and practices do not just account for and describe realities but also bring them into being. However, this popularity also leads to much confusion about the actual meaning of the concept, as the notion of performativity is used in various and at times conflicting ways. This course offers an introduction to the most influential understandings of performativity and related debates about the politics of the performative in different fields of study. It shows that different conceptions and genealogies of the idea of performativity co-exist. Performativity can be traced back to James Austin’s speech act theory as well as early debates within gender studies and science and technology studies. Conceptions of performativity differ in how they understand the ‘doing’ of social realities, whether as reiterative practices, speech acts and discourses or scripts for action inscribed in laws or technological objects. Based on close readings, participants of this course are encouraged to develop their own understanding of the notion of performativity. Throughout the course we will pay particular attention to one crucial implication of the notion of performativity: the need for reflexivity and responsibility in the context of knowledge production as the knowledge we produce about in relation to our matters of concern does not only describe realities ‘out there’ but also brings them into being in particular ways.
Next appointment:
Tuesday, 2026-10-13 at 10:15
Room: C 14.102 a Seminarraum