Austro Hungarian Action Fund

2023-2024

Project leader: Zsuzsanna Árendás 

 

The project aims to investigate how do individuals and families with children cope with ‘arriving’ to the city? ‘Arrival’ is understood in a broad sense, as a complex socio-cultural process, also labelled as ‘integration’ in policy perspectives, involving official stakeholders and a top-down management of these social processes. Our intention is to ‘turn the gaze’ and research integration, from now on social embedding process(Ryan, 2021) from below, from the perspective of individuals and communities directly involved in this complex, multidirectional process involving different actors, institutions and social spaces. 

The project researches social embedding(s) through 3 different angles or focuses, each highlighting an important aspect of this phenomena: 1. Through the questions of learning (including language learning, studies in formal and informal settings: a good example would be the integration of Hungarian children in the local schools, but also their choices of educational paths belong here, or problems related to German language acquisition in the schools). 2. The role of communities, most importantly their own diaspora communities in social embedding (however, specialized and professional communities, such as the Femspace, association of women professionals will be included too). 3. The role of the city/ urban settings. Vienna as a multiethnic, diverse city is a peculiar environment for individuals, families and communities involved in these processes. 

The project fully relies on qualitative methods, including in-depth individual interviews, focus group discussions, and art-based workshops. Participant methods will play an important role in the project: knowledge creation in cooperation with our interlocutors via audio-visual methods will be of central importance. 

 

Project participants: 

Zsuzsanna Árendás (HUN-REN CSS) ; dr. Erzsébet Tóth, Sigmund Freud Universität, Wien.