Wanka, Anna

When should one vote, use social media, complete one’s education, move out, become a parent, retire – or die? My research focuses on these and similar questions – that is, questions surrounding so-called 'chrononorms': societal expectations regarding the 'right' timing in one’s life course, and what happens when we deviate from them. I investigate how chrononorms are established, stabilised, or even challenged and transformed in practice. This becomes particularly evident during transitional phases, which are regarded as vulnerable moments for the (re)production of intersectional inequalities.

At present, for example, I am examining the life circumstances of young adults who take on care responsibilities for parents or grandparents. This 'age-atypical' transition breaks with notions of student life as a phase of freedom and self-discovery – and thus contravenes the chrononorms of young adulthood. I adopt a multi-methodological approach to my research topics, combining quantitative and qualitative methods in a reflexive manner – that is, recognising that research methods help to shape their subjects. Furthermore, I prefer to conduct my research not about, but together with, the people it affects – in other words, in a participatory manner.

• Sociological theories, in particular theories of practice and neo-materialisms, feminist theories and queer theory
• Methodologies and methods, in particular reflexive mixed-methods research (RMMR), post-qualitative and participatory approaches
• Social inequality and social differentiation
• Chronological norms, constructions of age and life course transitions
• Spaces, places and environments
• Old and new technologies

2006–2011 Sociology and Law (Diploma programme), University of Vienna
2009–2011 Student research assistant in the 'Family / Generations / Life Course / Health' research group at the Institute of Sociology, University of Vienna, Austria
2011–2016 PhD candidate in the 'Family / Generations / Life Course / Health' research group at the Institute of Sociology, University of Vienna, Austria
2017–2021 Postdoctoral researcher in the DFG-funded 'Doing Transitions' graduate programme, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main; habilitation project: 'Doing Retiring – The Social Practices of Transiting into Retirement and the Distribution of Transitional Risks'
2021–2023 Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Stuttgart, Institute of Social Sciences, focus: mixed-methods research
2021–2022 Visiting professor, Political Sociology of Social Inequality, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
2022–2026 Head of the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, title: 'Linking Ages – The Socio-Material Practices of Un/Doing Age across the Life Course'
since September 2026 Professorship of General Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Vienna