Associated Doctoral Researcher
Vita
I am a political scientist and earned a BA from Philipps-University Marburg and a MA from Freie Universität Berlin. My interests are Critical Security Studies, Technology and Popular Culture. After working as a researcher on the production of collective memory in digital formats at the University of Passau’s faculty of Arts and Humanities, I joined the Interdisciplinary Research Group for the Analysis of Biological Risks (INFABRI) at Hamburg University’s Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker-Centre for Science and Peace Research (ZNF) in 2017. Currently, I am a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Hamburg, working within the INFABRI research group on issues related to dual-use (bio-)technology, policy and security.
PhD project
My PhD project has the working title: The regulation of biological research with security implications (Dual-Use Research of Concern or DURC) in Germany. In the past two decades, several life science experiments have sparked a discussion about the security implications of biological research and the possibility of its misuse by malicious actors. In the wake of this discussion, several countries, among them Germany, introduced new guidelines for the conduct of DURC research, for example requiring researcher to conduct risk-assessments when conducting DURC experiments and adopt measures to decrease insecurities if necessary. These regulations share a particular view on the insecurities stemming from DURC research and on the measures needed to overcome them. Coming from a background of Critical Security and Science and Technology studies I am interested in how those common-sense views became powerful in and are reproduced through the policy making process on DURC.
Publications
Opper, J. (2020). A failure of imagination? Risikoanalyse und High Impact/Low Probability Ereignisse—Eine Herausforderung für die Sicherheitsforschung. In Sommerakademie der Zivilen Sicherheitsforschung & S. Ellebrecht (Hrsg.), Sicherheitslagen und Sicherheitstechnologien Beiträge der ersten Sommerakademie der Zivilen Sicherheitsforschung 2018 (S. 329–344).
Opper, J., & Sarwary, H. (2021, forthcoming). “Now Is Not The Time For Parties!”: The Construction Of Public Health, Problematic Youth And Moral Panic. Kriminologisches Journal.
Schlee, R., & Opper, J. (2020). Weaponizing the world. New Perspectives, 28(3), 314–329. https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X20935233