We are interested in developing new ways to foreground migration/mobility as an analytical-methodological lens into how societies and global entanglements are organized and transforming; as well as reconnecting migration and mobility studies. Our current research and teaching comprise the following Research Foci:
Already in the late 1970s, Edward Said spoke of a “generalized condition of homelessness” referring primarily to refugee and diaspora communities. Since then, patterns of mobility and displacement kept proliferating and diversifying, giving rise to, on the one hand, new modes of belonging and ideas of “home”, livelihoods, and communities; and differentially restrictive and racializing citizenship and migration regimes on the other. In a time of over-accumulation and unprecedented wealth (in the Global North/s), its distribution becomes more selective, while claims of (migrant) (un)deservingness figure as crucial ideological-policy features of moralizing and maintaining inequality. We are interested in how patterns of (Im)mobility, displacement and in-/exclusion are embedded in particular (colonial and imperial) histories, nativist anti-migrant ideologies and policies, making mobility and crossing borders a self-understood part of life for some and a matter of impossibility or necessity for others.
Migration policies in the Global North/s enhancing selectiveness, deterrence and deportation unfold in the midst of labor shortages, the crisis of social reproduction/care and exploitation of racialized and illegalized migrant labor. These developments run parallel to emerging initiatives for largescale regularization (e.g. Spain, Greece) as well as new labor immigration regimes and “quiet liberalization” of immigration (e.g. in CEE/SEE) etc. We are interested in exploring these ambiguous dynamics of contemporary migration regimes beyond epistemic binaries (e.g. forced/labor migration, democratic/illiberal contexts) to better understand how migration figures a central element of social reproduction and societal futures in times when antimigrant sentiment represents a core populist-political tool. We are developing in-depth ethnographic analyses of crucial societal realms such as health care, education, family policy, social work, welfare or naturalization.
We are interested in how knowledge about migration and mobility can be translated into different educational spheres (schools, teacher education, Business Universities, art/dance education etc.) through cooperation and co-production of knowledge with educational practitioners and students. The focus on the moving body enables a material-corporeal and affective reconnection between migration and mobility and provides the frame for exploring a wide range of different topics (such as e.g. gendered/queered relational movement; racial profiling in mobility infrastructures; biopolitics of migration/mobility; body imageries and practices in care labor). This focus also foregrounds applied aspects and cooperations (hospitals, companies, artists etc.) and multimodal outputs (new didactic formats, exhibitions, performances, etc.)
We use Ethnography, Qualitative Research, Comparison, Movement-based and Multimodal Methods, Historical and Applied Anthropology methods. Furthermore, the use of collaborative methods aims at providing knowledge also of relevance to practitioners (e.g. pedagogues, social workers, policymakers, NGOs, artists).
We focus on Europe (CEE/SEE, Switzerland, Austria) as a dynamic configuration of unequal regions and global entanglements (especially with Global Easts/Souths) and as an epistemological location of (self)critical knowledge production.
Professor / Senior Lecturer for Migration Studies
