Reflexive migration research emphasizes the critical examination of knowledge production—particularly concerning researchers’ positionalities, the categories they employ, and the institutional contexts in which they operate. We aim to extend this research stream by systematically engaging with linguistic positioning, which remains an underexplored feature in migration studies. Hence, our article critically engages with the multilingual challenges encountered in a sub‐study of our project, The Art of Arriving, which reconstructively examined the experiences of individuals who fled Ukraine to Austria during the early months of Russia’s war of aggression. Our contribution pursues two main objectives. First, we highlight the linguistic challenges that arose at various stages of the research process—including material collection, field access, data collection, translation, and reconstructive data analysis—and critically reflect on the strategies we adopted to address them. The active involvement of researchers with both cultural and linguistic expertise, combined with a reflexive and continuous dialogue within the entire research team, was crucial for navigating the multilingual research landscape. Second, we argue that translation processes in such projects should not merely be viewed as obstacles to overcome. Instead, these processes should be recognized as integral to the research itself. When critically reflected upon and facilitated through dialogue with culturally and linguistically familiar researchers, multilingualism can even enable deeper and more nuanced reconstructive analyses.

This article focuses on how artists who had to flee Syria between 2011 and 2016 have restarted their artistic careers in Austria. Pries' concept of arrival and Lamont's symbolic boundary approach offer an analytical framework for examining the process of becoming an artist anew. By drawing on data collected from a 4-year ethnography in various fields of cultural production in Vienna, this article sheds light on the barriers these artists face in their process of arriving. The findings show two superordinate challenges: 'having to start from zero' and 'struggling to be seen and recognized as artist'. A better understanding of the factors that affect refugees' artistic practices could be particularly beneficial regarding the role of art as a means of social inclusion. Finally, the question arises as to what extent artistic pathways can serve as a lens for studying the experience of arrival in the context of forced migration.

Our paper focuses on how members of the national ingroup respond when confronted with 'successful others' who challenge prevailing perceptions of immigrants and national belonging. We empirically investigate this through a case study on Alma Zadić, Austria's Minister of Justice since January 2020. Her non-Austrian origin initiated a heated public debate on the legitimacy of an immigrant or refugee holding one of the country's most important political positions. We analyse public discourse using interpretive analysis of online newspaper forum comments, employing the symbolic boundaries approach combined with the concept of negative classifications. The results reveal the cultural repertoires that members of the arrival society make use of when they negatively categorise an alleged newcomer of taking up a position that is considered exclusively reserved for the established. We contribute to the cultural sociology of social inequality and advocate for greater consideration of the intersectional entanglement of symbolic boundaries.

This article examines an emerging phenomenon within the South Asian economy in Hong Kong: Disadvantaged entrepreneurs, mainly from Pakistan, Nepal and India, have adopted breakout strategies to target other disadvantaged migrants, particularly Indonesian and Filipino foreign domestic workers. This challenges the widely shared assumption that breakout strategies of migrant entrepreneurs address primarily the mainstream population. By applying Erving Goffman's notion of frame, we focus on how these entrepreneurs understand and interpret their (change of) market orientation in the context of a specific entrepreneurial environment, where power asymmetries exist in the economic and political constellation between the ethnic majority and various groups of migrants. Regarding methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted, and analyses were done based on 15 business units with 19 migrant entrepreneurs targeting other marginalised migrant groups with whom they share stigmatisation by the ethnic majority. The findings reveal that four frames around "marginality" and "familiarity" play a crucial role in shaping South Asian migrant entrepreneurs' market orientation and strategies: a) shared experiences of discrimination, b) unwanted locality as resources, c) common culture, and d) race-based affinity and sympathy. These results contribute to the debates by adding a rather neglected form of market orientation to the diversification of migrant entrepreneurial strategies in existing literature, supplementing the economic and social explanations by applying a cultural sociological perspective of social inequality, and critically reviewing the assumption that breakout automatically generates economic success and social mobility.

The paper focuses on the experiences of displaced Ukrainians who arrived in Austria following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. We draw on the concept of 'arrival' as proposed by Ludger Pries, to delve into the multifaceted process of arrival that extends beyond mere physical relocation. By conducting group discussions and employing the documentary method, we reveal the challenges associated with 'arriving' at the individual, the interactive, and the institutional level. The findings show that the displaced persons' conjunctive experiences are characterised by a pervasive sense of loss - of their everyday certainties, past lives, future prospects, social recognition, and established social positions. This study not only contributes to the understanding of displaced Ukrainians in Europe, but also enriches the emerging field of the sociology of loss within the context of forced migration, emphasising the importance of focusing on people's experiences in addition to arrival societies' responses.

In this article, we use fiction as a lens to study processes of refugees’ arriving in Austria. For that purpose, we draw on findings from our transdisciplinary and participatory project “The Art of Arriving—Reframing ‘Refugee Integration’” in which we have created a real-world laboratory and examined if and how the meaning-making processes involved in creating and interpreting art can foster reframing “refugee integration” concepts and provide alternative views on the arrival of refugees beyond an assimilationist lens. By inviting and accompanying artists from different cultural realms (literature, music, and photography) and with different refugee experiences during the process of jointly creating an artwork as well as by getting access to the recipients’ interpretations of these artworks, we gained insights into the various ways that artistic practices unveil and contest common hegemonic expectations that shape the processes of refugees’ (and other migrants’) arriving. Our analysis of the short story “Außen vor” (“Being [left] out”) written by Hamed Abboud, Anna Baar, and Mascha Dabić—of its creation and reception process—contributes to the ongoing debates on how refugees’ artistic practices can serve as means of cultural and social transformation.

AbstractOur article discusses whether and how the musical activities of migrants and their descendants contribute to cultural change. Drawing on Andreas Wimmer’s work, we examine both the benefits and limitations of his ‘boundary-making approach.’ In so doing, we define cultural change as a transformation of ethnic boundaries. Based on the assumption that these boundaries arise from social classification, we shed light on the various processes that shape how musicians and their music are located in the symbolic order of internal identification and external categorisation. Following Wimmer, we suggest distinguishing between three fundamental modes of how social activities in the field of music affect boundaries: (1) Boundary changing, which includes boundary blurring and reinforcing; (2) boundary shifting, meaning the contraction and expansion of an ethnic boundary; and (3) boundary crossing, which occurs when an individual shifts sides and crosses a given boundary by changing their position. By adapting Wimmer’s typology, we aspire to provide a toolkit for analysing ethnic boundaries in the musical field and to contribute to the debate on the challenges of researching migrants’ impact on the social and cultural transformation of contemporary societies.

The main objective of the transdisciplinary and arts-based research project “The Art of Arriving: Reframing ‘Refugee Integration’” is to explore the transformative potential of the arts for the sociology of migration and integration. By creating a real-world laboratory where sociologists accompany artists as they create, and recipients while they interpret aesthetic expressions, the project focuses on the process of refugees’ arriving. The aim is to examine if and how the meaning-making processes involved in creating and interpreting art can foster alternative views about “refugee integration” and extend or even revise the traditional sociological toolkit for understanding integration. The article discusses the methodological implications of the planned transdisciplinary multimethod approach by paying particular attention to the different logics of knowledge production in science and the arts. Additionally, it sheds light on the benefits associated with the mutual translation between sociology and various fields of art, which is mediated through the process of creating and interpreting aesthetic expressions in the context of refugee migration.

Zusammenfassung Bildungsaspirationen – Ziele, die als erstrebenswert und möglich betrachtet werden – hängen von der sozialen Herkunft ab und wirken sich auf die Bildungserfolge aus. Somit sind sie ein wesentlicher Faktor in der Reproduktion sozialer Ungleichheit: Höhere soziale Positionen der Eltern gehen mit höheren Aspirationen von Jugendlichen einher. Liegt ein Migrationshintergrund vor, sind die Aspirationen tendenziell ambitionierter als wenn dies nicht der Fall ist. Die Zusammenhänge zwischen sozialer Position der Eltern und den Aspirationen der Jugendlichen im Migrationskontext sind bislang jedoch nicht ausreichend geklärt. Auf Basis des Projektes „Wege in die Zukunft“, in dem Schüler*innen der 4. Klasse NMS in Wien 2018 online befragt wurden ( n = 2850) zeigen wir, dass je nach Migrationsgeneration der Bildungshintergrund der Eltern (Indikator für die soziale Herkunft) die idealistische Bildungsaspiration unterschiedlich beeinflusst. Weiters divergieren die realistischen Bildungsaspirationen nicht nach Migrationshintergrund, sondern lediglich nach dem Bildungshintergrund. Im Migrationskontext ergeben sich also spezifische Zusammenhänge zwischen sozialer Herkunft und idealistischen sowie realistischen Bildungsaspirationen, die anknüpfende theoretische und empirische Forschung notwendig machen.

Educational aspirations depend on social background and influence educational careers. Therefore, they play an important role in the reproduction of social inequality. Children of parents in higher social positions have higher educational aspirations. Furthermore, many studies prove that aspirations of migrants are higher than those of native born. So far, however, the relation between social position and aspirations of migrants and their descendants has not been studied in detail. Based on quantitative online-survey data collected in the last grades of lower secondary schools in Vienna (Austria) in 2018 (n = 2850), we show that the migrants' generation affects how educational background influences idealistic educational aspirations. Furthermore, we reveal that in contrast to idealistic aspirations, realistic aspirations are not influenced by migration background. We conclude that in the context of migration, specific mechanisms of reproduction of social inequality become relevant. These need to be investigated theoretically and empirically in further research.

ABSTRACT This article examines the experiences of artists who were forced to leave their homes due to war, persecution, and violence that (re-)started their artistic careers in their arrival countries. Based on an ethnographic study of Syrian refugees’ artistic practices in Vienna, Austria, spanning diverse cultural fields (music, theatre, literature, visual art), the paper shows how these artists are not only confronted with what has been called ‘the burden of ethnic representation’, but also with expectations that emerge from being categorised as ‘refugees’. A four-mode typology of the artists’ self-presentations (adapting/masking/switching/refusing) uncovers how this ‘double burden of representation’ shapes their positioning in the field of art – by emphasising either ethnic or refugee labels (or both or neither). The findings contribute to the study of social categorisation of migrants and their artistic practices in the cultural field and how this affects pathways of social incorporation.

No Access4. Heterogenität am Ende der NMS: Unterschiedliche Ausgangspositionen JugendlicherSusanne Vogl, Michael Parzer, Franz Astleithner, Barbara MataloniSusanne Vogl, Michael Parzer, Franz Astleithner, Barbara Matalonihttps://doi.org/10.14220/9783737011457.87SectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail About Previous chapter Next chapter FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Download book cover 1. AuflageISBN: 978-3-8471-1145-0 eISBN: 978-3-7370-1145-7HistoryPublished online:June 2020 PDF download

No AccessOffenheit als kulturelles Kapital. Kosmopolitischer Konsum in migrantischen ÖkonomienMichael ParzerMichael Parzerhttps://doi.org/10.14220/9783737008280.271SectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail About Previous chapter Next chapter FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Download book coverMigrations- und Integrationsforschung Multidisziplinäre PerspektivenVolume 10 1. AuflageISBN: 978-3-8471-0828-3 eISBN: 978-3-7370-0828-0HistoryPublished online:April 2018 PDF download

This paper explores ethnic majority consumption practices in immigrant economies. Drawing on recent debates on cosmopolitanism, we focus on the question of how the use of immigrant shops by members of the ethnic majority is intertwined with the erosion and/or the (re)production of symbolic boundaries. We conducted 31 in-depth interviews and 15 go-alongs with consumers in immigrant grocery shops in Vienna. Our findings show how consumption is based upon and shaped by the various ways consumers attribute meaning to the shops, the products on offer as well as their shopping experiences. We identified five different types of consumption: consuming nostalgia, consuming patronage, consuming change, consuming alterity and consuming diversity. However, we only consider the latter two as cosmopolitan consumption in a narrower sense. We show that within these types, the expression of openness towards the other' constitutes a form of cultural capital displayed by members of the privileged classes. The article argues in favour of a more comprehensive understanding of consumption practices in immigrant economies. This encompasses that not every act of shopping in immigrant businesses is cosmopolitan and that research is called to consider that the various types of consumption effect boundaries along ethnicity and class in manifold ways.

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the methodological practice of Go-Alongs for exploring immigrant entrepreneurs' native customers, a barely developed subfield within immigrant business research. Through accompanying individuals on outings in their familiar environments, Go-Alongs as a qualitative data collection method are used to gain access to practices, experiences and interpretations of individuals in their everyday routines. Drawing on current qualitative research on native customers in immigrant grocery shops in Vienna, the article demonstrates how Go-Alongs can be used for exploring consumption practices and patterns of interethnic interaction in this specific setting. What becomes apparent is that Go-Alongs provide an opportunity to gain access to reflexive aspects of lived experience in situ, in the present case expressed by spontaneous and emotional comments when the shop, ethnic products or interethnic interactions are commented on and evaluated. Moreover, Go-Alongs allow insights into modes of self-expression. However, Go-Alongs have limitations as they cannot capture consumption practices beyond the limited time and space of shopping. Furthermore, they do not fully provide access to narratives and discourses; therefore, Go-Alongs are most useful in combination with in-depth interviews.

This article examines how immigrant entrepreneurs 'break-out' of their reliance on co-ethnic markets by becoming attractive to customers beyond their own ethnic community. So far, break-out has been considered mainly an economically driven and consciously implemented strategy. By drawing upon interviews with small business owners in the Turkish food retailing sector in Vienna, as well as crowd-sourced reviews about immigrant businesses on online platforms, I want to complement this view in two aspects: First, there is considerable evidence that the entrepreneurs' market orientation is shaped by their social embeddedness which is expressed by referring to the contradictory contexts of different expectations not only those of their own community but also those of the majority community. Second, by using the example of the entrepreneur's urban neighbourhood, it is suggested that break-out is not solely the result of a deliberately adopted strategy, but rather the outcome of factors far beyond the control of the individual entrepreneur.