Placing Memories: Ageing Labour Migrants in Vienna

Austrias so-called guest workers (Gastarbeiter), who immigrated from former Yugoslavia and Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s, are now reaching retirement age. In Vienna, where the majority of them have settled, one-third of the population 55 years and older will soon be first-generation migrants. Although these labour migrants have shaped Vienna for more than half a century, they remain politically/socially marginalised and a critically understudied part of the population. This is reflected in the way their histories and vital contribution to Austrias post-WWII economic success are not collected and commemorated (e.g. in memorials, street names) and have not become a part of Austrias national collective memory. By locating and analysing ageing labour migrants memory places, this study explores how these histories are remembered outside of national commemoration practices. This investigation of memory places will reveal how Viennas ageing labour migrants locate themselves in the past and in Viennas cityscape, delivering insights into their sense of identity and belonging. This study will probe into the nature of mnemonic practices in an ethnically diverse context and will explore the role of place as a mnemonic device in the context of migration, ageing and multi-locality. Thus, this study on ageing migrants facilitates a discussion of memory, migration, and place three research fields that have not yet been systematically studied in their interrelation. This is achieved via a mix of innovative qualitative methods combining a narrative with a socio-spatial approach. Memory-guided city walks (including visual methods), semi-structured narrative interviews and participant observation are the key methods of this study. The ageing labour migrants memory places are expected to inherit a transnational dimension reflecting the migrants mobility and their multi-locale past. In order to capture this transnational dimension in its full capacity, I will accompany a select number of informants to their country of origin. This approach penetrates the still-persistent concentration on memory and place within a tight national framework. This study will trigger novel empirical findings on ageing labour migrants and will provide ample opportunity for developing theoretical insights in the interdisciplinary fields of migration studies, memory studies, anthropology of ageing and the intersection of said fields. While this research is first and foremost conducted for academic purposes, its outcomes will certainly be of interest to policy makers. The study also hopes to raise awareness of ageing migrants and their histories among the majority population.

Austrias so-called guest workers (Gastarbeiter), who immigrated from former Yugoslavia and Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s, are now reaching retirement age. Although these labour migrants have shaped Vienna (the city where the majority of them settled) for more than half a century, they remain politically/socially marginalized and form a critically understudied part of the population. This is reflected in the way their histories and vital contribution to Austrias post-WWII economic success are neglected and in how they have not become a part of Austrias national collective memory. By locating and analyzing ageing labour migrants memory places, this study between 2015 and 2018 explored how these histories are remembered. The study employed a mix of innovative qualitative methods combining a narrative with a socio-spatial approach. Memory-guided city walks (including the use of visual methods), semi-structured narrative interviews and participant observation represented key methods. The findings show how memory and place are tightly entangled. Memories are often attached to particular places and to the movement between places, whereby places become meaningful once they are connected to personal memories of past times. The identified memory places of ageing labour migrants show a transnational dimension reflecting the migrants mobility and their multi-locale past. These findings question the still persistent concentration on memory and place within a tight national framework. With the concept of place-making I investigated the different forms migrants appropriate the cityscape and showed how place-making is not only built on the past but how it is also future-oriented when facilitating home-making. Moreover, the findings show that spatial identities are tightly connected to specific phases in the lives of labour migrants. Thereby this study triggered novel empirical findings in the interdisciplinary fields of migration studies, memory studies, anthropology of ageing and the intersection of said fields.