FORUM Refugee studies in Austria today From challenges to a research horizon Leonardo Schiocchet, Sabine Bauer-Amin, Maria Six-Hohenbalken, and Andre Gingrich Abstract: Th is article sets out to highlight present-day anthropological contribu- tions to the fi eld of forced migration and to the current debates on this topic in Europe through the experience of developing an international and in terdisciplin- ary network for the study of refugees based in Vienna, Austria. To this end, this article engages with the grounding facts of the present Central European sociohis- torical context and global political trends, grapples with shift ing and questionable research funding landscapes such as the focus on “integration,” illustrates some of the main current research challenges, and highlights pressing topics. It concludes proposing a research horizon to counter present strong limitations on forced mi- gration research and steer this research toward a more meaningful direction. Keywords: Central Europe, encounter, forced migration, integration, refugee studies, research horizon How can anthropology and anthropologists First, we will introduce ROR-n and give an contribute to the current refugee/migration overview of recent political developments in debate, particularly in Europe? How relevant is Austria and Central Europe, debating their im- anthropology to this topic today? Th is article plications to refugee-related matters. We will engages these questions through our experi- then succinctly outline the contemporary sce- ence in setting up and developing the Refugee nario of refugee studies in Austria and the most Outreach & Research Network (ROR-n), an relevant focus and funding shift s. Th e question international and interdisciplinary network for of “integration” emerges here as both funda- the study of forced migration based in Vienna, mental to the fi eld of forced migration in Eu- Austria. Th rough this experience, in turn, this rope and deeply fl awed. Next, we will set out article engages particular challenges in working experiences in dealing with research data while on forced migration studies in Central Europe prevailing public moods and opinions have and suggests a comprehensive research horizon largely been swayed toward the political right, to drive the discipline toward a fruitful endeavor. and then highlight new research challenges and Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 87 (2020): 89–103 © Th e Authors doi:10.3167/fcl.2020.012803 90 | Leonardo Schiocchet, Sabine Bauer-Amin, Maria Six-Hohenbalken, and Andre Gingrich blind spots. Finally, we will discuss what shift - From the outset, ROR-n comprised research ing political, funding, and research contexts institutes and independent expert researchers might imply for anthropology’s future role in in refugee studies in particular, and in human refugee studies. Th roughout these sections, we (im)mobility at large, aiming at both enduring aim to illustrate how anthropologists can con- and ad hoc collaborations for producing and tribute to the contemporary public and schol- sharing knowledge about processes of human arly refugee/migration debates through their displacement in general and Middle Eastern ref- particular expertise in how to approach forced ugees in particular. Furthermore, ROR-n’s eff orts migration, which in turn entails handling sensi- have also aimed at including displaced academ- tive research data, being pushed into a research ics in the network and academia, and to inform agenda, among other challenges. With this per- an interested public in Austria and beyond spective in mind, we conclude by proposing about processes of forced migration. Within this a research horizon to counter present strong broad frame, however, ROR-n’s eff orts have been limitations on forced migration research and geared toward utilizing established and new an- steer this research toward a more meaningful thropological insights as principles for the inclu- direction. sion of contributions from other disciplines, and the network’s outlook resonated with established trends in anthropology and forced migration Th e Refugee Outreach studies. and Research Network Anthropologists had been especially active in forced migration studies from this fi eld’s early Th e Refugee Outreach and Research Network, days. Based on a research tradition dating back is a cross-institutional, social- science-based co- to the 1970s and reaching far beyond the Euro- operative research and public outreach initia- pean context (see Chatty 2010; Chatty and Col- tive based at the Austrian Academy of Sciences chester 2002; Colson 2003; Colson et al. 1979; (AAS), with partners across various universities Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al. 2014; Harrell-Bond and NGOs in Austria, as well as in Northern 1986; Malkki 1995; Reynell 1989; Sayigh 1979; Italy, Hungary, Southern Germany, Lebanon, Verdirame and Harrell-Bond 2005), anthro- and elsewhere. It was founded aft er the sum- pologists have developed particular insights on mer of 2015, when the authors of this article, what the conditions of refugeeness entail and all anthropologists based at the AAS’s Institute on how questions of (im)mobility (Salazar and for Social Anthropology (ISA), called a series Smart 2012) aff ect relations between nation- of roundtable discussions aiming at setting up states, refugees, immigrants, and a variety of a transdisciplinary network for the study of other social actors. Anthropology, according to forced migration. Not many researchers were Dawn Chatty, has prioritized and continues to specializing in forced migration in Austria be- prioritize “the views of the uprooted, the dis- fore the summer of 2015, and the few who did placed, and the dispossessed.” It brings to light rallied mostly from the fi eld of European his- the voices and agency of those who are forced to tory and were knowledgeable in one particular leave or to stay, emphasizes their lived experi- group or area, for example, Jewish and Holo- ence over statistical data and scrutinizes as well caust studies, displacement from the Ex-Yugo- as documents “what happens to people, their slavia, or other salient topics associated with culture, and society when they are wrenched Austrian history. Th us, for those events, we from their territorial moorings, be they refu- invited academics specializing in migration in gees and exiles, development induced displaces, general. Besides historians and anthropologists, or mobile peoples evicted, restricted, and forced there were demographers, legal experts, geogra- to remain in one place” (2014: 74). However, as phers, linguists, and others. presented below, current global perspectives on Refugee studies in Austria today | 91 refugees and funding opportunities geared to- tion, mobilized by images of the harsh situation ward securitization and the subsumption of ref- of thousands of refugees waiting on Budapest’s ugee studies under migration studies, perhaps Keleti train station and the rising awareness especially in Europe, might overlook those par- about the mounting death tolls of refugees in ticular well-established insights in our discipline. the Mediterranean. But aft er an initial phase of enthusiastic welcome by large sectors of civil society, growing popular concerns were suc- Th e political context in Austria cessfully manipulated and instrumentalized by conservative and neo-nationalist political forces. To understand forced migration research ten- Th is phase was thus marked by political skepti- dencies in Austria, it is necessary to consider cism and critique rather than by a friendly atti- this country’s rich history in receiving large num- tude toward refugees and diversity. bers of migrants, forced or otherwise. During Latent right-wing populist sentiments were the past three hundred years, Austria has ex- raised by politicians and increasingly by Aus- perienced large infl uxes of people (Kuzmany trian citizens, especially at the borders, who and Garstenauer 2017), many of them in recent saw themselves confronted with the arrival of history. Major infl uxes were brought up, for thousands of people within a few weeks and the example, by the Prague Spring events of 1968 overwhelming presence of volunteers, security that took more than 162,000 Czech refugees to forces, journalists, and spectators. Th is resulted Austria, and the Bosnian Civil War of the 1990s, in a policy of increasingly rigid seclusion and when Austria became home to 95,000 Bosnian in a reduction of public and media discourses refugees (Kraler and Stacher 2002). Accord- to the topic of the “refugee crisis” while inten- ing to Leonardo Schiocchet (2016: 236), even tionally confl ating refugees’ requests with labor though the 2015 numbers are indeed the high- migration. Th e capitalist logic behind this was est recorded since World War II, they do not to put domestic labor markets under rapidly in- look as unique in historical perspective. What creasing pressure until substantial parts of the is unique this time is that refugees in 2015/2016 local work force would demand the strength- were labeled according to their diff erent reli- ening of existing limitations of access to these gious background. Contrary to the Czechoslo- local labor markets. In Hungary, for example, vak refugees of the late 1960s and the Bosnian a rhetoric language regime (Kroskrity 2000) of refugees of the mid-1990s, the Middle Eastern “crises” was mobilized in 2015 around the topic refugees of 2015 did not come from previous of foreign groups entering the Schengen Area imperial