Apr 28, 2021
New project launched: MigOst
ZfI-MigOst
At the Centre for Integration Studies, under the direction of Dr Karoline Oehme-Jüngling and in cooperation with the Dachverband der Migrant*innenorganisationen in Ostdeutschland (DaMOst), a new project on East German migration history has started: Within the framework of „MigOst – Ostdeutsche Migrationsgeschichte selbst erzählen“ , an interdisciplinary team is working on reappraising the migration history of the GDR and the 'new federal states' together with contemporary witnesses in participatory history workshops and making it more visible in the nationwide discourse.
Karoline Oehme-Jüngling explains: "Hegemonic discourses of memory on East German history have large gaps in their perspective and social positioning: GDR society is often imagined as homogeneous and white. Life-history narratives of people with migration histories in East Germany are neither part of a national nor a local culture of remembrance. With this research, we want to contribute to making these story/s more visible and at the same time test participatory forms of scholarship".
DaMOst Executive Director Anja Treichel adds: "Migrant organisations active nationwide are very West German in character and often the impression is created that the German immigration story is solely a West German one. But the GDR also had a migration history that still influences migrant organisational structures and perceptions of migrants in the new federal states today". Together with local migrant organisations, the MigOst team will organise group and exchange meetings in Halle, Dresden and Cottbus. The results of these meetings will later be incorporated into local cultural productions and strengthen migrant perspectives in the respective city histories.
For this purpose, two new part-time and one student position have been created at the ZfI, which will be filled by Luise Böhm, Paolo Le van and Franca de Graaf. The MigOst team will be joined by a total of five additional staff members from the DaMOst partners, the Institute for Saxon History and Folklore Dresden e.V. and the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg.
The MigOst project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research for three years as part of the Citizen Research funding area. It is one of 15 projects that will advance the cooperation between citizens and researchers in terms of content and methodology and provide answers to societal challenges until the end of 2024. More information here.
News and further information on the project 'MigOst' can also be found on the new project website.
