Preliminary Programme

In my paper I will focus on the theoretical and methodological conceptualisation of gender in
historical migration research. I would like to apply the concept of intersectionality to discuss
several categories of social inequality characterising European labour migration in the 19th
century, especially gender, class/strata, ‘ethnicity’, religion and language.1 Avoiding
generalisations on ‘the men’ and – if mentioned at all – ‘the women’ who migrated or who
maintained life at home, the concept of intersectionality allows new perspectives on the
shifting discourses and practices of societies experiencing migration. At the same time,
intersectionality enables us to assess the (restricted or extended) agency of people involved.
Inasmuch as it combines ‘gender’ with other forms of discrimination / power relations
intersectionality as a research concept requires a close and precise view on historical
developments. Moreover, as a concept that has been developed in and in between different
academic fields, intersectionality can bring a new theoretical and methodological stimulus to
historical migration studies.
Using transregional case studies, my research project analyses short? and long?distance
migration of working people in Europe, especially seasonal / circular migration.2 I am
particularly interested in the social and cultural changes triggered by labour migration to
explore transformational processes both at the places of departure and of arrival. Since
migratory movements were origin as well as result of modernisation, they also (re)produced
differentiations, exclusion and inclusion.3 I will study how migration changed the social texture of the native society and how (small) communities reacted towards people with a
different language or faith, with an uncommon cultural background. Labour migrants did not
only transgress national borders, language barriers and ‘cultural’ boundaries, but the
transitory place (‘third space’) of migration also established new individual opportunities.
Migrants were thus part and agents of transcultural processes.4 Gender, ‘ethnicity’ and other
categories of inequality were a fundamental part of changing rules, practices and discourses.
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About 800 young Germans, between sixteen and twenty-five years old, were transferred from Bundesland Schleswig-Holstein to Sweden through a bilateral agreement in 1950 and 1951, for work training and work. A majority of the selected migrants were women, and many of them belonged to those Germans who had fled from, or were expelled from, Central- and Eastern Europe in connection with the end of the Second World War. The agreement between Swedish and West German labour market authorities stipulated that the German youngsters should stay for at least two years in Sweden, but a majority stayed in Sweden for good. Most of the migrants were upon arrival employed in different Swedish garment- and textile industries, about a hundred of them in match factories, and a smaller number of the boys in engineering industries. The Swedish labour market authorities labelled this inter-state coordinated migration process as the Schleswig-Holstein-campaign.

In this paper I combine migration systems theory with oral history. A migration systems theory approach emphasises the three steps of a migration process: “the culture of origin and departure, the actual move, and the process of insertion/acculturation into the receiving society” (Harzig, Hoerder & Gabaccia, 2009:xxi). The focus of this paper is on female labour migrants who were recruited to one of the Swedish garment industries (AB Algot Johansson), which participated in the Schleswig-Holstein-campaign. The source material mainly consists of oral histories – interviews with these women – and I study how the migrants construct narratives as regards the three steps of their migration processes in retrospect. Foremost I highlight how the three steps of their migrations are narrated as turning points in their overall life histories: Which meaning do they attribute to experiences from their childhood and teenage years during the Nazi- and early post-war era in relation to their subsequent experiences of work in Sweden? How do they narrate the actual move? Which meaning do they stress considering their work experiences in Sweden in relation to their background experiences? (Show less)

One of the largest ethnic group among refugees in Austria are people from Chechnya. Since the beginning of the flight movements from Chechnya to Austria in 2002 around 15.000 Chechnyens have settled down in Austria.
The Caritas is one of the main NGO's in Austria which houses and counsels refugees. The author of the paper, Petra Wlasak, was an integration councelor for Caritas in Graz/Styria in Austria and had the subjective impression that especially Chechnyen singe mothers are in general very successful in managing their integration process. To find out if this impression was true and to find out more about the changing gender roles of Chechnyen single mothers a research project under the supervision of Prof. Karin Schmidlechner from the University of Graz was started. The final paper of the research projects deals with life reality and moral concepts of Chechnyen single mothers in Graz who are officially recognised refugees.
In the paper the question is raised if the women’s special life situation is a possibility to broaden their scope of action outside the traditional Chechnyen behavioural norms. In order to verify this thesis, theoretical fundaments of War & Gender, Flight & Gender as well as Transculturalism & Gender are being elaborated. Furthermore a historical overview on the region Chechnya, the Chechnyen society and the current political and social situation in Chechnya is given. The paper especially concentrates on the traditional Chechnyen gender order and it is described how this order has changed during the times of the Sovjet Union and since the violent conflicts after the fall of the Sovjet Union. The paper also deals with the current gender order in Chechnya and describes the legal and social situation of women in Chechnya today. In the empirical part of the paper four individual cases of Chechnyen single mothers are described. Qualitative guided interviews are being analyzed concerning the difference between life reality, moral values of the case studies and traditional Chechnyen behaviour norms. This way it is checked if the life reality and the moral values of the interviewed women differ from the traditional Chechnyen behaviour norms and if the specific life situations of the women make a self-determined life possible.
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