Spaces and Locations of Migration

Conference Conveners: Annemarie Steidl (University of Vienna), Oliver Kühschelm (zhmf/IGLR), Anne Unterwurzacher (FH St. Pölten), Mirjam Milharčič Hladnik and Aleksej Kalc (Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts).

The conference is a collaboration of the Department of Social and Economic History at the University of Vienna with first – Research Network for Interdisciplinary Regional Studies and the Slovenian Migration Institute at the Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts.

From a historical perspective, spatial mobility was/is part of daily practices. When people moved, they often did so because of better opportunities somewhere else; they repeatedly migrated due to economic circumstances, for cultural and individual reasons (e.g., lifestyle migration, educational migration), or in reaction to political emergencies, as a result of persecution, physical violence, or other kinds of repression. People were (and are) mobile in more complex ways than the once in a lifetime move from one social and cultural context to another. Their movements include ongoing, circular, or return migrations. Moreover, migration cannot be reduced to cross-border movements. A more flexible definition of migration is needed that does not overlook the relevance of permanent or semipermanent changes of residence. Its scope cannot be limited to movements over long distances or across state borders. Permanent changes of residence are a worthy object of analysis but so are short-term stays, recurrent patterns of seasonal and circular mobility, and the practices of being constantly on the move of vagrants and traveling people. Even sedentariness does not constitute a clear-cut opposite to migration. The life course of many people includes at different times mobility as well as sedentariness – and many practices that lie somewhere in between.

The conference will make an effort to capture the multidimensionality and the blurred/contested boundaries of migration, mobility, and sedentariness. It will raise the question if and how a stronger reflection about space and the spatial dimensions of migration/mobility can contribute to de-nationalize, de-‘ethnicize’ and de-‘migranticize’ migration research.

The Institute of Rural History will be represented by Jessica Richter who will talk about Mobile Makeshift Economies. Oliver Kühschelm will chair the panel on Trading and staging places.

> Conference programme (pdf)