Processes of subjectivation and self-formation of accompanied refugee girls in Germany
Final Report Abstract
The focus of the research project “Processes of Subjectivation and Self-formation of family-accompanied Refugee Girls in Germany“, funded by the DFG, was to investigate the societal positioning of young women addressed as refugees. Special attention was paid to their experience of everyday bordering in German society. Young women addressed as refugees are often portrayed with special regard to their (assumed) vulnerability, e.g. in media representation, political debates as well as in research. It seems noteworthy, that it is often neglected how and by whom these kinds of ascriptions are made. Likewise, their own way(s) of dealing with these often-marginalizing ascriptions is often not very well researched. In contrast, within this project both the young women themselves as well as people making attributions were interviewed with regard to the women’s societal positioning. It turns out that many of them share and criticize the experience of being addressed as ‘refugee women‘ – notwithstanding ‚countries of origin‘ or personal biographies. In many cases, this kind of address is accompanied by a marginalization; at the same time, other options of self-identification and -description are neglected. In the course of the research, three areas turned out to be especially important with regard to their societal positioning: structural categorization (e.g. within asylum law and living regulations), personal interactions with friends, colleagues and teachers (e.g. address as ‘victim of circumstances‘ and/or potential care-workers) as well as their encounters with and address by social workers (e.g. as ‘new‘ target group). Especially the last issue has hardly been researched by anthropologists. In all three contexts, references to established imaged of the marginalized ’other women‘ play an important role. Furthermore, it was a central result of the research that the special subject-position of ‘the refugee woman‘ – as it was established in the aftermath of the ‘long summer of migration‘ (Hess et al. 2017) – only works through the simultaneous othering of young women addressed as refugees on a structural level, in interpersonal interaction and within encounters with social work. Last but not least, the ‘successful‘ production of the subject-position ‘refugee women‘ is only completed through their own reception of it (both its rejection and acquisition).
Publications
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Die Verwicklung der Ethnologin im Feld. Perspektiven für eine (selbst-)kritische Betrachtung ethnologischen Forschens zu Flucht, in: Maren Sacherer (Hg.), Überfällig – Überflüssig. Beiträge der Studierendentagung 2019, Wien: Univ. Wien, S. 68-74
Odierna, Beatrice
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„Bilder der Handlungsmacht ‚geflüchteter Frauen‘“ in Sozialer Arbeit«, in: DDS März 2022, S. 9-10
Odierna, Beatrice
