"Arrival" Infrastructures: Processes of Emplacement of Displaced People from Ukraine in Vienna

The outbreak of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine has caused the largest mass displacement of people in Europe since WWII. Austria has become one of the countries receiving those fleeing the war, while Vienna emerged as the country's major arrival hub.

The research project launched by the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) within its Europe-Asia Research Platform on Forced Migration and directed by Prof. Ayşe Çağlar has been exploring the response of the city of Vienna to the mass influx of displaced people from Ukraine. The study scrutinizes  the legal, institutional, and physical infrastructures that emerged within the intersection of the European, federal, and city levels structuring the processes of emplacement of the newly arriving people. By focusing particularly on four major spheres: employment, accommodation, education, and healthcare, it traces how the applied frameworks, governance practices, allocation of resources, and associated discourses shaped the coping strategies, experiences, positionalities, and subjectivities of those who found themselves in Vienna. The analysis addresses the complex interrelations between the different actors involved in the reception of people especially within the uneven landscape of civil society in Vienna. The research situates the current situation and the peculiarities of the temporary protection regime within the context of historical precedents of managing  mass movements of displaced people and the broader governance frameworks of asylum and forced migration.

A panel discussion took place on February 9th, 2023 at the IWM ind Vienna.

Volha Biziukova

Volha Biziukova is a postdoctoral fellow at Central European University and has recently defended her Ph.D. at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna. Her Ph.D. project was supported by the Uni:doc fellowship and the Marietta Blau Grant.  Volha Biziukova was also a junior visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in 2019-2020. Her research interests include state, state-citizen relations, political participation, and consumption with a special focus on the post-Soviet space.

Ruslana Koziienko

Ruslana Koziienko is a social anthropologist and a Ph.D. candidate at Central European University (Vienna). She was an IWM visiting fellow with the Institute’s program for Scholars from Ukraine in the summer of 2022. Her research interests include gender and forced migration, masculinities and displacement.

Anna Lazareva (Jun 22 - Jan 23)

Anna Lazareva is currently completing her master’s degree in Political Science at the University of Vienna. Originally from Ukraine, Anna received her BA in Political Science and Economics from the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Her research interests are Eastern European and Eurasian region, political economy, social movements, nationalism and national identity.