Past Events

	Title	Date	Type	Speakers
	Innovative Methods of Research in Migration & Refugee Studies	Mon, 21.12.2020, 11:30	Panels and Discussions	Ayşe ÇağlarSandro Mezzadra, Giorgio Grappi, Lydia Potts	Innovative Methods of Research in Migration & Refugee Studies Mon, 21.12.2020, 11:30 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarSandro Mezzadra, Giorgio Grappi, Lydia Potts Series: Panels and Discussions This event was part of a two-day teachers’ workshop on Research Methodology and Syllabus Making in Migration & Forced Migration Studies organised by the Calcutta Research Group in collaboration with Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna. Read more
Innovative Methods of Research in Migration & Refugee Studies Mon, 21.12.2020, 11:30 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarSandro Mezzadra, Giorgio Grappi, Lydia Potts Series: Panels and Discussions This event was part of a two-day teachers’ workshop on Research Methodology and Syllabus Making in Migration & Forced Migration Studies organised by the Calcutta Research Group in collaboration with Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna. Read more
	Junior Visiting Fellows' Conference Winter 2020	Thu, 17.12.2020, 10:00	Conferences and Workshops		Junior Visiting Fellows' Conference Winter 2020 Thu, 17.12.2020, 10:00 Speakers: Series: Conferences and Workshops Morning Session Moderator: Iryna Sklokina Read more

	Refugee Sponsorship: Will Civil Society Keep Stepping Up?	Wed, 16.12.2020, 15:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe ÇağlarJennifer Hyndman	Refugee Sponsorship: Will Civil Society Keep Stepping Up? Seminar Series on Forced Migration with Jennifer Hyndman and Ayşe Çağlar Wed, 16.12.2020, 15:00 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarJennifer Hyndman Series: Seminars and Colloquia For more than 40 years, groups of Canadians have raised funds and offered their time to support over 325,000 refugee newcomers through the Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program (PSRP). In 2020, planned numbers for private refugee sponsorship (20,000) in Canada were double the number of government-assisted refugees to be resettled. Based on an original qualitative study, this paper probes how voluntary sponsorship – as a kind of civil society mobilisation – has been sustained over decades. Refugee newcomers who land in Canada as permanent residents become part of the communities and society in which they stay. Many have left family members behind in refugee camps and sanctuary cities without permanent status, and so become sponsors themselves with a view to reuniting in Canada. This phenomenon of ‘family-linked’ sponsorship is a unique, defining and sustaining feature of the program by motivating family members in Canada to team up with experienced sponsors to ‘do more’. Our data show that sponsorship is a community practice that occurs across scales – linking local sites in Canada to countries where human atrocities are common and neighbouring states that host those who flee. Sponsorship connects people in various communities across the world, and these transnational links are important to understanding the sustainability of sponsorship over time in Canada. Read more
Refugee Sponsorship: Will Civil Society Keep Stepping Up? Seminar Series on Forced Migration with Jennifer Hyndman and Ayşe Çağlar Wed, 16.12.2020, 15:00 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarJennifer Hyndman Series: Seminars and Colloquia For more than 40 years, groups of Canadians have raised funds and offered their time to support over 325,000 refugee newcomers through the Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program (PSRP). In 2020, planned numbers for private refugee sponsorship (20,000) in Canada were double the number of government-assisted refugees to be resettled. Based on an original qualitative study, this paper probes how voluntary sponsorship – as a kind of civil society mobilisation – has been sustained over decades. Refugee newcomers who land in Canada as permanent residents become part of the communities and society in which they stay. Many have left family members behind in refugee camps and sanctuary cities without permanent status, and so become sponsors themselves with a view to reuniting in Canada. This phenomenon of ‘family-linked’ sponsorship is a unique, defining and sustaining feature of the program by motivating family members in Canada to team up with experienced sponsors to ‘do more’. Our data show that sponsorship is a community practice that occurs across scales – linking local sites in Canada to countries where human atrocities are common and neighbouring states that host those who flee. Sponsorship connects people in various communities across the world, and these transnational links are important to understanding the sustainability of sponsorship over time in Canada. Read more
	Language Policies in Multilingual Countries: Western and Non-Western Approaches	Mon, 14.12.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Volodymyr Kulyk Wolfgang Merkel Miloš Vec	Language Policies in Multilingual Countries: Western and Non-Western Approaches Mon, 14.12.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Volodymyr Kulyk Wolfgang Merkel Miloš Vec Series: Seminars and Colloquia The presentation was based on the nearly completed Ukrainian-language book that examines the varieties of language policy in a number of Western and non-Western multilingual countries, looking not only at those with official bi- or multilingualism but also at those promoting one dominant language. The book seeks to describe and explain their successes and failures in promoting certain languages, ensuring human rights, maintaining social stability, and forging national unity, with a keen eye on identifying those arrangements that could be adopted in today’s Ukraine. In the presentation, however, Volodymyr Kulyk focused on similarities and differences between prevalent patterns of multilingualism and its management by the state in Western and non-Western (post-colonial and post-imperial) countries. He explored sociolinguistic, historical and political factors determining these countries’ choices of language policy and their degrees of success in its implementation. Read more
Language Policies in Multilingual Countries: Western and Non-Western Approaches Mon, 14.12.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Volodymyr Kulyk Wolfgang Merkel Miloš Vec Series: Seminars and Colloquia The presentation was based on the nearly completed Ukrainian-language book that examines the varieties of language policy in a number of Western and non-Western multilingual countries, looking not only at those with official bi- or multilingualism but also at those promoting one dominant language. The book seeks to describe and explain their successes and failures in promoting certain languages, ensuring human rights, maintaining social stability, and forging national unity, with a keen eye on identifying those arrangements that could be adopted in today’s Ukraine. In the presentation, however, Volodymyr Kulyk focused on similarities and differences between prevalent patterns of multilingualism and its management by the state in Western and non-Western (post-colonial and post-imperial) countries. He explored sociolinguistic, historical and political factors determining these countries’ choices of language policy and their degrees of success in its implementation. Read more
	Belarusian Protests: In Search of Democracy, or the Restructuring of State Institutions	Mon, 07.12.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Ludger Hagedorn Marci Shore Pavel Barkouski	Belarusian Protests: In Search of Democracy, or the Restructuring of State Institutions Mon, 07.12.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Marci Shore Pavel Barkouski Series: Seminars and Colloquia For more than 100 days in Minsk, citizens’ protests against the authorities, which falsified the results of the last presidential elections, have not subsided. Forms of suppression unprecedented in Europe – violence and brutality against protesters – have forced many citizens to reconsider their attitude to what is happening. If initially the protest was inspired by the desire to establish democratic mechanisms for the change of power, we are now talking about a more basic level of relations within the framework of the social contract. Citizens insist on a return to the meaning of constitutional rights. Read more
Belarusian Protests: In Search of Democracy, or the Restructuring of State Institutions Mon, 07.12.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Marci Shore Pavel Barkouski Series: Seminars and Colloquia For more than 100 days in Minsk, citizens’ protests against the authorities, which falsified the results of the last presidential elections, have not subsided. Forms of suppression unprecedented in Europe – violence and brutality against protesters – have forced many citizens to reconsider their attitude to what is happening. If initially the protest was inspired by the desire to establish democratic mechanisms for the change of power, we are now talking about a more basic level of relations within the framework of the social contract. Citizens insist on a return to the meaning of constitutional rights. Read more
	“Blame-Games” and “Blame Avoidance”	Mon, 30.11.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Markus Rheindorf Ruth Wodak Miloš Vec	“Blame-Games” and “Blame Avoidance” Discursive Strategies in Times of COVID-19 Mon, 30.11.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Markus Rheindorf Ruth Wodak Miloš Vec Series: Seminars and Colloquia The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world both dramatically and irrevocably. For months, politics and media have focused on COVID-19 and the countless facets of its impact of ever more uncertainty and insecurity in our lives. Following Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Fear (2006) and Wodak’s The Politics of Fear (2021), it has become evident that a “politics of fear (and hope)” has been reinforced and instrumentalized by numerous national governments, in significantly different ways. Accordingly, the range of discourses appear to have changed equally dramatically, in terms of both subject matter and discursive practices. Has the pandemic truly altered the strategies and mechanisms of mediatized politics? Which well-understood/well-studied discursive patterns and trends – including interdiscursivity, (re)nationalization, securitization – and which discursive strategies – like the blame-game (Rheindorf & Wodak 2018) and blame avoidance (Hansson 2015) are still to be found in times of COVID-19, perhaps in altered forms? Some may have been marginalized, while the pandemic may have acted as a catalyst for others. Drawing on the Discourse-historical Approach (DHA) in Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), we will raise such questions and attempt to answer them through theoretical considerations and empirical evidence. Read more
“Blame-Games” and “Blame Avoidance” Discursive Strategies in Times of COVID-19 Mon, 30.11.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Markus Rheindorf Ruth Wodak Miloš Vec Series: Seminars and Colloquia The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world both dramatically and irrevocably. For months, politics and media have focused on COVID-19 and the countless facets of its impact of ever more uncertainty and insecurity in our lives. Following Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Fear (2006) and Wodak’s The Politics of Fear (2021), it has become evident that a “politics of fear (and hope)” has been reinforced and instrumentalized by numerous national governments, in significantly different ways. Accordingly, the range of discourses appear to have changed equally dramatically, in terms of both subject matter and discursive practices. Has the pandemic truly altered the strategies and mechanisms of mediatized politics? Which well-understood/well-studied discursive patterns and trends – including interdiscursivity, (re)nationalization, securitization – and which discursive strategies – like the blame-game (Rheindorf & Wodak 2018) and blame avoidance (Hansson 2015) are still to be found in times of COVID-19, perhaps in altered forms? Some may have been marginalized, while the pandemic may have acted as a catalyst for others. Drawing on the Discourse-historical Approach (DHA) in Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), we will raise such questions and attempt to answer them through theoretical considerations and empirical evidence. Read more
	Mental Illness as a Cultural and Societal Phenomenon	Mon, 23.11.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Anna Kiedrzynek Eric Reinhart Ludger Hagedorn	Mental Illness as a Cultural and Societal Phenomenon Mon, 23.11.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Anna Kiedrzynek Eric Reinhart Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia The collapse of communism in the CEE region 30 years ago was the start of a long-term process of sociopolitical change, in which a major transformation of the mental health system was expected. Unfortunately, this transformation is not yet complete. For example, in Poland people with severe mental illnesses and disabilities are treated in large psychiatric institutions and lack access to community-based care. The stigma around people with severe illnesses remains higher there than in Western European countries (according to The Lancet Psychiatry): they face exclusion on many levels and often remain marginalized. It is crucial that mental illnesses is seen, by both academic researchers and journalists, as not just a biological fact but also a societal and cultural phenomenon. Read more
Mental Illness as a Cultural and Societal Phenomenon Mon, 23.11.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Anna Kiedrzynek Eric Reinhart Ludger Hagedorn Series: Seminars and Colloquia The collapse of communism in the CEE region 30 years ago was the start of a long-term process of sociopolitical change, in which a major transformation of the mental health system was expected. Unfortunately, this transformation is not yet complete. For example, in Poland people with severe mental illnesses and disabilities are treated in large psychiatric institutions and lack access to community-based care. The stigma around people with severe illnesses remains higher there than in Western European countries (according to The Lancet Psychiatry): they face exclusion on many levels and often remain marginalized. It is crucial that mental illnesses is seen, by both academic researchers and journalists, as not just a biological fact but also a societal and cultural phenomenon. Read more
	Narrative Making in the European Capital	Tue, 17.11.2020, 14:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Ivan Vejvoda Julia De Clerck-Sachsse	Narrative Making in the European Capital Tue, 17.11.2020, 14:00 Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Julia De Clerck-Sachsse Series: Seminars and Colloquia As great power competition increasingly spills over into the information space, a compelling European narrative has become a geopolitical imperative. Europe finds itself in a battle of narratives between democracies and authoritarian regimes that cannot be decided on the basis of facts alone. To resist populist and autocratic forces, the European Union needs to communicate in a more personal and empathetic way demonstrating that its policies can deliver for its citizens. Just as the old adage has it that the personal is always political, the political will need to become more personal if Europe wants to hold its ground in the battle of narratives. Read more
Narrative Making in the European Capital Tue, 17.11.2020, 14:00 Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Julia De Clerck-Sachsse Series: Seminars and Colloquia As great power competition increasingly spills over into the information space, a compelling European narrative has become a geopolitical imperative. Europe finds itself in a battle of narratives between democracies and authoritarian regimes that cannot be decided on the basis of facts alone. To resist populist and autocratic forces, the European Union needs to communicate in a more personal and empathetic way demonstrating that its policies can deliver for its citizens. Just as the old adage has it that the personal is always political, the political will need to become more personal if Europe wants to hold its ground in the battle of narratives. Read more
	The Stage of Pre-solidarity	Mon, 16.11.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Tomasz Rakowski Miloš Vec	The Stage of Pre-solidarity Affective Work in Poland Since Late Socialism in the Light of an Experimental Ethnographic Methodology Mon, 16.11.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Tomasz Rakowski Miloš Vec Series: Seminars and Colloquia Tomasz Rakowski's experimental study may reveal elements of recent Polish social history omitted in local knowledge-production. He will focus on enthusiastic building, social deeds, vernacular creativity, and various stages of pre-solidarity in Poland since late socialism. He will discuss the flipside of late socialist modernization in Poland, and its trajectory after 1989, considered as both intimate, unrecognized dimensions of bottom-up statehood practices, and processes of acquiring a kind of latent, almost invisible social and political subjectivity. An experimental, historical-ethnographic methodology may unearth elements of Polish social history kept secret for decades. The study is conducted in the context of the “people’s history”, yet more precise, and based on specially elaborated methodology. Read more
The Stage of Pre-solidarity Affective Work in Poland Since Late Socialism in the Light of an Experimental Ethnographic Methodology Mon, 16.11.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Tomasz Rakowski Miloš Vec Series: Seminars and Colloquia Tomasz Rakowski's experimental study may reveal elements of recent Polish social history omitted in local knowledge-production. He will focus on enthusiastic building, social deeds, vernacular creativity, and various stages of pre-solidarity in Poland since late socialism. He will discuss the flipside of late socialist modernization in Poland, and its trajectory after 1989, considered as both intimate, unrecognized dimensions of bottom-up statehood practices, and processes of acquiring a kind of latent, almost invisible social and political subjectivity. An experimental, historical-ethnographic methodology may unearth elements of Polish social history kept secret for decades. The study is conducted in the context of the “people’s history”, yet more precise, and based on specially elaborated methodology. Read more
	Migration, Borders and Technologies – An Introduction to Techno-Borderscapes	Wed, 11.11.2020, 17:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe Çağlar Giorgia Donà	Migration, Borders and Technologies – An Introduction to Techno-Borderscapes Seminar Series on Forced Migration with Giorgia Donà and Ayşe Çağlar Wed, 11.11.2020, 17:00 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Giorgia Donà Series: Seminars and Colloquia In this presentation, Giorgia Doná discussed the relationship among migration, borders and technologies by examining the role of mobile digital devices in the everyday lives of migrants in transit and their encounters with state agents, humanitarian actors and activists at the border. The concept techno-borderscapes is introduced to rethink transit zones as sites of embodied and virtual interactions that highlight the connections among digital securitisation, humanitarianism and activism. Confronted with increased border securitisation, migrants use mobile technologies to bypass borders, create new forms of migrant-to-migrant protection and assistance, and articulate their political voice. Border spaces are not just ‘in-between’ zones along a unidirectional migratory trajectory but rather transformative and transforming techno-borderscapes. Read more
Migration, Borders and Technologies – An Introduction to Techno-Borderscapes Seminar Series on Forced Migration with Giorgia Donà and Ayşe Çağlar Wed, 11.11.2020, 17:00 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Giorgia Donà Series: Seminars and Colloquia In this presentation, Giorgia Doná discussed the relationship among migration, borders and technologies by examining the role of mobile digital devices in the everyday lives of migrants in transit and their encounters with state agents, humanitarian actors and activists at the border. The concept techno-borderscapes is introduced to rethink transit zones as sites of embodied and virtual interactions that highlight the connections among digital securitisation, humanitarianism and activism. Confronted with increased border securitisation, migrants use mobile technologies to bypass borders, create new forms of migrant-to-migrant protection and assistance, and articulate their political voice. Border spaces are not just ‘in-between’ zones along a unidirectional migratory trajectory but rather transformative and transforming techno-borderscapes. Read more

Past Events

Current Fellows' research