Franziska Völlner, MA

About the Person

since 02/2023 I Member of the DK “Dynamiken von Ungleichheit und Differenz im Zeitalter der Globalisierung“ at the research centre of „Kulturelle Begegnungen und Konflikte, Universitiy of Innsbruck

since 10/2022 I Freelancer at the project “#OhneAngstVerschiedenSein. Reden über Judentum, Erinnerungskultur und Nahost – im Spannungsfeld von Antisemitismus und Islamfeindlichkeit in der Migrationsgesellschaft“, Jewish Museum Hohenems

since 08/2022 I PhD student of philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy and History, Institute for Historical Science and European Ethnology, University of Innsbruck. Supervisors: Silke Meyer und Levke Harders

03/2020 - 03/2022 I Master Programme Gender, Culture and Social Change Universitiy of Innsbruck. Title of Master Thesis: Erzählte Identitäten. Heimat – FluchtMigration – Staatsbürger:innenschaft

05/2019 - 07/2019 I Internship at the Jewish Museum Hohenems, Research Assistant for the Exhibition „Ende der Zeitzeugenschaft?“ and the European summer university for jewish studies

since 02/2019 I Member of the Working Group „Gmeiner Huus” in Ludesch

03/2016 - 04/2019 I Bachelor Programme European Ethnology, University of Innsbruck

08/2015 - 08/2018 I Bachelor Programme Political Science, University of Innsbruck

PhD project

[Un-]Doing Heimat. Female Migrants’ Strategies of [Nicht]Beheimatung in Vorarlberg, Austria.

In German-speaking countries Heimat is ubiquituos in science, politics and society. However, the academic focus is, given the mobilization of the term during the Nazi era, still on the instrumentalization of the term by the right-wing political spectrum. In right-wing narratives, Heimat is conceptualized as naturally given, static, territorial, and national(istic). Based on this, migration is on one hand presented as a threat to a Heimat worth protecting. On the other hand, migrants are thought of as heimatlos. In contrast to this perception, this dissertation project pursues a postmigrant approach. That is to say, migration is not considered a problem and/or crisis in need to be solved, but rather a historical fact and a present state of society. On this basis, this research project deals with female migrants’ strategies of [Nicht-]Beheimatung ([not] making oneself a home) as well as the processes they are embedded in. In order to answer the dissertation’s research question and in order to overcome the practice of ‘talking about’ migrants, biographical-narrative interviews are being conducted. Heimat, in this context, is conceived as an individual, lifelong, dynamic process that depends on conditions of success. With a look at relationships of dependency that migrants find themselves into in the context of arrival, Heimat is not only conceived as a successful practice, but also as a potentially unsuccessful one. Given the fact that female perspectives have so far been underrepresented in (migration)research, this dissertation explicitly focuses on female migrants. Furthermore, the dissertation project aims to deconstruct prevailing gendered as well as racialized stereotypes and furthermore aims to (re)present female migrants as self-determined actors in Vorarlberg, Austria.

Research interests

  • Migration
  • Postmigrant Perspectives
  • Biography (Research)
  • Intersectionality
  • Antisemitism and Anti-Muslim-Racism
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