VIENNESE PALESTINIANS: THE AUSTRIAN-PALESTINIAN ENCOUNTER

In recent decades, there has been an important influx of European-Palestinians between the Near East and Europe. Representations, ideologies, behaviors, conceptions, along with material objects and valuables, travel with them. This project aims at researching and analyzing national and religious fluxes circulating through transnational Palestinian networks involving Vienna, while determining their relative scope and place within the European and Palestinian scenarios. This projects object is such fluxes themselves, as well as the secular and religious institutions claiming to represent or support Palestinians, and solidarity networks (Palestinian or not) around them. While the main European axis of these fluxes was Germany in the 1960s and Scandinavia in the 1980s and 1990s, the Palestinian diaspora quickly established a foothold in other European countries. In Vienna, the Palestinian community is very well established, however, there is currently little academic research on the Austrian case. Primarily centered on the Palestinian community in Vienna, this project secondarily seeks to follow these fluxes back to the Near East as well. My main research hypothesis is that Palestinian religious fluxes in Vienna, as in some other European countries such as Denmark, have been largely driven underground partially due to a European emphasis on secular institutions as representing an ideal civic scenario. However, Islamic institutions and associations have been increasingly attracting young Palestinians alongside other Muslim immigrants. How, if at all, are Europe and Palestine embedded in each other? What are the main national and religious components of the Austrian-Palestinian encounter? How can we characterize the institutional space through which national and religious referents flow? Does the Viennese-Palestinian encounter foster a certain kind of relationship between nationalism and religion, and if so, what is it? What of this encounter can be used to enlighten future policies toward Islamic immigration and foster civil society in Europe? I will pursue these questions mostly in Vienna through ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and the analysis of media outlets as support. Main foreseen contributions are: understanding the relations between nationalism and religion among Palestinians and other Muslims in Austria; understanding the Austrian context vis-à-vis other European and non-European scenarios already researched by me; contributing to the debate on Islam and immigration in Europe, and that of religion and civil society at large. Furthermore, this project is at the forefront of the effort to address the severe relative lack of anthropological research on Palestinians in Europe in general (and in Austria in particular), and Palestinian comparative studies more broadly. This effort, in turn, will contribute by generating analytical material to fuel bolder theoretical advances on Palestinian social belonging processes, and religion and nationalism more generally.

This research discussed the Austro-Palestinian encounter, including the established Palestinian population in Austria, the newly arrived Palestinian refugees coming from Syria, and Austrian pro- Palestinian activists. It prioritized discussing the encounter as a framework for the asymmetric embeddedness of ideas, representations, and values across different social groups. In doing so, it did not focus exclusively on Palestinians nor on Austria, as fieldwork for this project departed from Palestinians in Austria and Austrian pro-Palestinian activists and cut across different social belongings and contexts. The research aimed at contributing mainly to two sets of literature: the first, on migration and forced migration, especially in relation to debates around what has been framed as integration and mobility studies; the second, on Palestinian nationhood, social belonging, and the Palestinian diaspora. The encounter substitutes the common narrow focus on integration and community studies for a broader focus on the meeting between different worldviews and social practices, and the way the encounter connects Austria, Europe, and the Arab Middle East. This research ultimately aimed at discussing how worldviews and social practices are shaped by this encounter, and how the encounter has affected both Palestinians, and Austria and the Austrians. This encounter is defined both in terms of mutual representations and worldviews, and in terms of religious, ethnic, and political relations. Fieldwork informing this research was mainly focused on Palestinian civil society institutions in Austria, and Austrian- led institutions claiming to represent or support Palestinians. To determine the symbolic and practical extent of the encounter, however, research has also investigated how Palestinians in Austria and their institutions are connected to the Middle East, which in turn has entailed research among individuals and institutions in that region. The so-called Summer of Migration, when large numbers of refugees arrived in Europe mainly fleeing conflicts in the Middle East, deeply reconfigured the social situation this project was analyzing, given the timing. In particular, most Palestinians in Austria had not arrived officially as refugees, as did the recent Palestinians coming from Syria, whose situation heightened the role of refugee victimhood along with the above-mentioned concepts, and strengthened their connection with other Arabs in the country. Research results point to a complex relationship between the Austrian and the Palestinian imagined communities, in which each one significantly influenced key sectors of the other. This influence entailed both negative contrast and political and cultural approximations, which in turn mutually shaped ideals, values, and attitudes. The relationship among social actors involved in the encounter is asymmetrical. Yet, representations of the Palestinian cause also embodied values, ideals and attitudes presented as universal, and thus beyond nationhood. In particular, the idiom of humanitarianism, along with political ideals, helped to shape the Austro-Palestinian encounter. Both Palestinianness and Austrianness were empowered by how close they embodied humanitarian principles Palestine as a cause and Austria/Europe as its champion.