Malin Houben

Body and medical sociology, qualitative methods (ethnography, interaction analyses), ethnomethodology, sociological gender studies.

In my ethnographic dissertation project, I deal with gynaecological practice and ask about the mechanisms of the production and maintenance of gynaecological situations. As a contribution to the ethnomethodological studies of work, I reconstruct how work is organised interactively, physically and materially, technically and linguistically. The practices of professional proximity and distance are the central subject.

In my teaching (Bielefeld University, Münster University, Duisburg-Essen University, Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts), I combine various theoretical, methodological and empirical issues with my main areas of research. I successfully completed the NRW certificate "Professional Teaching Competence for Higher Education" in 2024. In 2022, I designed a public exhibition on sociological perspectives on exhibition objects together with students for the teaching project "Sociological History(s) in the Historical Museum Bielefeld".

Lectures:

• "Questions in Qualitative Interviews - Lessons Learned from Secondary Analytical Methodological Research". Expert workshop "Because they (don't) know what they are doing? Empirical findings on data production in qualitative interviews" at the University of Duisburg-Essen, September 2023 (together with J. Eckert)
• "'Interview Mistakes': Methodological Reflections and Empirical Findings on Dispreferred Question Formats". Critical Times - Congress of the Austrian Sociological Association, Vienna University of Economics and Business, July 2023 (together with J. Eckert, G. Coussios, G. Ullrich)
• "On seeing-learning and some border areas of the ethnographic gaze in the medical field". Symposium Field Research in Medicine: Added Value and Challenges of Ethnographic Approaches to Health, University of Augsburg, March 2023
• "Technology in use: the examination chair as infrastructure, interactional resource and social practice in gynecologogy". STS-hub.de 2023, RWTH Aachen University, March 2023
• "Sociological history(ies) in the Historical Museum Bielefeld". Exhibition opening as part of the 41st Congress of the German Sociological Association, Bielefeld University, September 2022
• "Exposed intimacy? The Production of Examinable Bodies in Gynaecological Practice". Gender Studies interdisciplinary lecture series, Bielefeld University, June 2022
• "Methodological secondary analyses". Workshop at the workshop Qualitative Secondary Analyses in Educational Research. Findings, experiences, perspectives. QualiBi - Research data platform for qualitative educational research, Frankfurt a.M./digital, March 2022 (together with J. Eckert)
• "Secondary analyses of qualitative interview data from data archives - An experience report from a user's perspective". Spring Conference of the Section Methods of Qualitative Social Research of the German Sociological Association, University of Tübingen/digital, March 2021 (together with J. Eckert)
• "Who is 'I'? The Invisible Interviewer in Archived Data and Beyond". The Qualitative Report (TQR) Conference, Fort Lauderdale (USA)/digital, January 2021 (together with J. Eckert)
• "Working on abortion as a practice of restoring a fertile women*s body". Lecture series "Medientechnik ∙ Körper ∙ Gesundheit" at the Institute of Sociology, JLU Giessen, October 2019
• "Quo vadis data? A critical evaluation of quantitative survey instruments on gender and sexual diversity". Joint annual conference of the German Society for Medical Sociology and the German Society for Social Medicine and Prevention, HHU Düsseldorf, 2019 (together with K. Jacke)
• "Working on abortion. Ethnography of the treatment of unwanted pregnancies". Research Workshop Qualitative and Interpretative Methods at the Institute of Sociology, TU Dortmund University, 2018
• "Health care beyond male/female-binary: requirements for non-normative health care based on the participatory study 'Queergesund*'". 10th European Feminist Research Conference, University of Göttingen, September 2018 (together with G. Dennert)

• Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (Sektionen: Methoden der qualitativen Sozialforschung, Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, Soziologie des Körpers und des Sports)
• Fachgesellschaft Geschlechterstudien
• Netzwerk Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung NRW
• ehem. Sprecherin der AG Methoden und Methodologien im Netzwerk* Sexuelle und geschlechtliche Diversität in Gesundheitsforschung und -versorgung/AG Sexuelle und Geschlechtliche Diversität bei der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sozialmedizin und Prävention (DGSMP)