Dr Robert Dorschel

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Corpus Christi College
  • Assistant Professor in Digital Sociology
  • Fellow of Corpus Christi College
Available to supervise doctoral students
Available to supervise masters students
Dr Robert Dorschel

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About

Robert Dorschel is Assistant Professor in Digital Sociology at the University of Cambridge. His research investigates how processes of digitalisation relate to work, class, and culture. He has studied the work ethic and class formation of tech workers, the professionalisation of data scientists, and the corporate cultures of tech firms. Additionally, he has developed theoretical work that advocates for a broadening of the digital labour concept. His most recent work investigates the adoption of GenAI as well as the class divides in contemporary society more generally.  

Robert studied sociology and political science at Humboldt-University Berlin, Duke University, and the University of Kiel, before completing a PhD in Sociology at the University of Cambridge in 2023. His PhD dissertation, "The Social Codes of Tech Workers“, was awarded the Dissertation Prize by the Association of Internet Researchers and was published as a monograph by MIT Press in 2025. 

Between 2022 and 2024, Robert worked as Assistant Professor in Social Inequality at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

 

Research

Research interests

  • Digital sociology
  • Social class
  • Cultural sociology
  • Economic sociology
  • Labour
  • Subjectivity
  • Science and technology studies
  • Classical and contemporary social theory

Research Groups and Affiliations

  • Cambridge Digital Humanities  
  • Sociology of AI Research Group  
  • Technology and New Media Research Cluster

 

Publications

Books

Dorschel, Robert (2025): The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism. MIT Press.

Journal Articles

  • Dorschel, Robert (2026): Entrepreneuring Legitimacy. A Case Study of the Boundary-Makings and Cultural Codes of the Tech Elite. The British Journal of Sociology, 77(2), 358-371.
  • Dorschel, Robert (2026): Global Warming as Investment Climate: Green Tech and the Translation of Needs. Journal of Cultural Economy, 19(2), 171-186.
  • Baert, Patrick / Dorschel, Robert / Hall, Meredith / Higgins, Isabelle / McPherson, Ella / Philip, Shannon (2025): Dialogues Towards Sociologies of Generative AI. Social Science Computer Review, 44(1), 59-79.
  • Lindner, Michael / Dorschel, Robert / Schuster, Antonia (2025): Climate Change and Class Structure: Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Social Classes in the United Kingdom. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 1-25 [online first].  
  • Dorschel, Robert / Hermans, Anne-Mette (2025): Body, Beauty, Enrichment: Theorizing the Rise of the Cosmetic Industry Through Boltanski and Esquerre’s Framework of Enrichment. Journal of Cultural Economy. Online first, 1-17 [online first].  
  • Dorschel, Robert (2024): Middle-Class Responses to Climate Change: An Analysis of the Ecological Habitus of Tech Workers. Current Sociology, 72(7), 1301-1318.
  • Dorschel, Robert (2022): A New Middle-Class Fraction with a Distinct Subjectivity. Tech Workers and the Transformation of the Entrepreneurial Self. The Sociological Review, 70(6), 1302-1320.
  • Dorschel, Robert (2022) Reconsidering Digital Labour: Bringing Tech Workers into the Debate. New Technology, Work and Employment, 37(2), 288-307, 
  • Dorschel, Robert (2022): Tech Workers und das achtsam-moralische Selbst. Jenseits von Künstlerkritik und Arbeitskraftunternehmer. Arbeits- und Industriesoziologische Studien, 15(1), 125-143.
  • Dorschel, Robert (2021): Discovering Needs for Digital Capitalism. The Hybrid Profession of Data Science. Big Data & Society, 8(2), 1-13.
  • Dorschel, Robert / Brandt, Philipp (2021): Professionalisierung mittels Ambiguität. Die diskursive Konstruktion von Data Scientists in Wirtschaft und Wissenschaft. Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 50(3-4), 193-210.
  • Allmendinger, Jutta / Dorschel, Robert (2021): Der Raum des Möglichen. Kursbuch, 207, 61-72.
  • Dorschel, Robert (2021): “Data Science“ Analyse einer emergierenden Profession mittels einer Verknüpfung von Diskurs- und Feldtheorie. Soziologie, 50(1), 94-102.

Book Chapters

  • Dorschel, Robert (2020): A Field Theoretical Discovery of the Tourism Industry. In: Pietzcker, Dominik/Vaih-Baur, Christina: Ökonomische und Soziologische Tourismustrends. Strategien und Konzepte im globalen Destinationsmarketing. Springer, Wiesbaden, pp. 29-44.
  • Dorschel, Robert/Allmendinger, Jutta (2019): Über die sozialen Fesseln unserer Sprache. In: Eichinger, Ludwig / Plewnia, Albrecht (Hrsg.): Neues vom heutigen Deutsch. Empirisch – methodisch – theoretisch. Jahrbuch des Instituts für Deutsche Sprache 2018. Berlin / Boston: de Gruyter, pp. 313-23.

Media Articles

Other

  • Dorschel, Robert (2021): Contours of the Networked Self. New Media & Society, 23(1), 193-198. [Book Review Essay]

Teaching and supervision

Available to supervise doctoral students
Available to supervise masters students
  • Deputy Pathway Coordinator, MPhil in Media and Culture 
  • Paper Organiser, SOC7: Media, Culture and Society  
  • Paper Organiser, Sociology Undergraduate Dissertation
  • Fellow and Director of Studies at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge

 

Graduate and Postgraduate supervision

Robert is available to supervise MPhil and PhD students working in the following research areas: digital sociology, social class, cultural sociology, economic sociology, labour studies, subjectivity studies, science and technology studies
 

Awards

  • Dissertation Award, Association of Internet Researchers (2024) 
  • Early Career Workshop Award, SASE: Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (2022) 
  • Research Network Award, Cambridge Digital Humanities (2022) 
  • Best Master Thesis Award, German Sociological Association (2020) 
  • PhD Stipend, sdw: Foundation of the German Economy (2019-2022) 
  • MA Stipend, sdw: Foundation of the German Economy (2017-2019)