Paper short abstract:

The presentation reveals preliminary results of an ethnographic inquiry exploring the relationship between members of various migrant groups in refugee services in Austria, and the concepts of migrant and refugee deservingness in these settings.

Paper long abstract:

In the last decade Western European national policies of regularisation have increased emphasis on education and labour-market participation. Policies invited the proliferation of institutions assisting refugees to obtain, in line with these policies, proper language skills, various qualifications and employment. The creation of such institutions, while having the mandate to channel newly arriving potential workforce towards the labour market, also created further needs for labour. Teachers, trainers, social workers, social pedagogues, as well as a great number or volunteers were recruited in these institutions, a high proportion of whom being themselves of migrant background, and in the case of Austria, arriving from Central and Eastern European countries.

The presentation would reveal preliminary results of an ethnographic research exploring the relationship between members of various migrant groups in such educational and welfare institutions in Austria, and the reshaping of concepts of migrant and refugee deservingness in these settings. I seek to analyse the effect of migration background as layered upon policy frameworks and institutional discourses, assuming that the latter set up the broader structural and discursive contexts within which individuals act and manoeuvre. How do migration and asylum policies translate into institutional discourses and into individual narratives of deservingness, when institutions responsible for their implementation are animated by persons who are themselves transnationally mobile? How do personal migration experience, migrant background and migrant identities of workers in these institutions shape discourses about other migrants, and their accommodation in the host society?