Places, spaces and the memory of migration. Remembering in a (post-)migrant society

Abstract

Places, spaces and the memory of migration. Remembering in a (post-)migrant society This contribution deals with the invisibility of migration history in the memory landscape of Austria. We discuss the collective amnesia and the social marginalisation of migration histories, especially the history of labour migration since the 1960s in Austrian archives and museums as well as in public space. Drawing on transnational perspectives on history and space and insights from postcolonial theory, we understand the plea for 1) Der vorliegende Aufsatz entstand als Teil des von Dirk Rupnow geleiteten FWF-Projekts P 24468-G18 "Deprovincializing Contemporary Austrian History. Migration und die transnationalen Herausforderungen an nationale Historiographien (ca. 1960-heute)" am Institut für Zeitgeschichte der Universität Innsbruck (11/2012-10/2016) und des ebenfalls vom FWF geförderten Elise-Richter-Projektes V 186-G18 "Lieux de Mémoire of Migration in Urban Spaces: the Example of Vienna" von Christiane hInteRmann am Institut für Geographie und Regionalforschung der Universität Wien.

Memories of the struggles for the rights of immigrant women in Barcelona

“…Current debates surrounding migration focus largely on the paradigm of integration and on the problems, shortcomings, and differences of migrants in relation to the resident population. European societies hold an entrenched self-conception of the nation state and a false notion of homogeneity (Hintermann and Rupnow, 2016). Migration is perceived within these societies as being purely contemporary and ahistorical (Varela, 2007), and immigrants are considered victims bereft of agency.…”

“…Secondly, we understand that collective effort is deeply embedded in previous experiential journeys of resistance (Calveiro, 2006: Cappiali, 2016), along pathways of struggle and organisation that produce and reproduce processes of inequality, injustice, and mobilisation (Alexander and Mohanty, 1997; Harris, 2006). Thirdly, in remembering the struggles for the rights of immigrant women, the exclusivity, colonialism, and sexism of European memory are rendered visible (Hintermann and Rupnow, 2016). The memories of migrant struggles contain other stories, but these are silenced by traditional power structures because they do not fit comfortably into the national and masculine frameworks that shape history (Bold et al, 2002; Rothberg and Yildiz, 2011).…”