Narratives of Migrating Minorities - Muslims and Jews

The project analyses biographical narratives of Jews and Muslims in Austria, regarding their experience as religious minorities. The selection of the communities is based on characteristics of similarity (i.e. language and regional background) as well as of difference (reasons for emigration, socio-economic background). By focusing on biographies and experiences of daily life, it will be possible to challenge topoi of difference, as manifested in the media or political debates. We have developed particular methods of interviewing as well as text-interpretation in focus groups for this project, in order to encourage the expression of hitherto neglected aspects of migration and life in Austria. In this way, we hope to add more nuances to the grand narratives of identity and belonging. The main goal is to show how political dynamics in ones country of origin, as well as in Austria influence the formation of individual and group boundaries, and how these identifications change over time: how does one relate to other minorities, other Jewish communities, or to the majority society? Based on biographic narratives we will include as many perspectives as possible, without reducing the individuals under consideration to a status of migrants or minorities.

Vienna is home to one of the world's largest communities of Jews from Central Asia, who mostly came from the countries of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the 1980s. They share a cultural background with Muslims from Persian speaking countries, including Iran and Afghanistan. This historical, cultural and linguistic commonality that has fallen into oblivion, most importantly among the respective communities themselves. The project explored which aspects of this shared cultural background are selected or discarded in the process of creating communal boundaries, as "Muslims" and "Jews" in Vienna. It therefore was the first research in German-speaking academia that approaches Muslim and Jewish experiences as connected, conducted by a research team with the necessary linguistic expertise as well as knowledge of the communities in Austria. The research initially looked at how heightened political and public polarization in Austria against immigrants informs images of the Self and the Other, as well as how experiences of individuals in everyday life differ from these official topoi. The qualitative research methods contain biographic interviews, as well as the innovative form of a reading cycle with Muslim and Jewish individuals originating from Persianate societies came together. In this group, experiences of leaving home as well as one's position in Austria were exchanged, in order to tease out differences and similarities between the groups. In a second phase, we read selected parts of Persian literature together and found its reflection in vernacular Jewish languages from the region (i.e. Judeo-Persian or Bukhori). We thereby crossed the disciplinary borders that have to date shaped research on Jewish and Muslim communities. Biographic research allowed us to point out how religious and ethnic identity are transformed in the process of migration, and to relate these transformations to global discourses and communities beyond Austria. Focusing on individual biographies and experiences of daily life engendered the questioning and transcending of official topoi of difference that were purported in many political and media debates throughout the duration of the project. Through the methods of biographical narration and reading groups, we were able to point to hitherto hardly represented aspects of leaving and settling in a new home, thereby introducing more diversity in narratives of identity and belonging among minorities in Austria.