Conference Report (ENIUGH 2023) – by Elisabeth Czerniak and Johannes Glack
Between 29th June and 1st July 2023, the Seventh European Congress on World and Global History took place in The Hague, Netherlands. Under the title “Conflict and Inequity, Peace and Justice: Local, Regional and International Perspectives” this international conference provided the space to promote interdisciplinary exchange and spark discussions on a diverse spectrum of topics.
On 30th June, the participating members of the ERC Research Group GLORE from the University of Vienna had the opportunity to present some early findings of their just started projects. At the Double Panel “Displaced Persons and Refugees in Postwar Europe: A Transnational History of Displacement”, which was organised by Philipp Strobl, researcher in the project Norms, Regulation and Refugee Agency: Negotiating the Migration Regimes.
The first panel session had a special focus on various forms of refugee agency and consisted of three talks given by Rachel Blumenthal (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Philipp Strobl (University of Vienna), and Elisabeth Czerniak (University of Vienna). Philipp Strobl explored different acts of agency among German-speaking refugees in post-war Austria. Rachel Blumenthal on the other hand focused on Jewish DPs in Upper-Austria and how internal structures were organised in DP-camps to show how Shoah survivors regained control over their lives. In her talk Elisabeth Czerniak presented a biographical case study that illustrated the repatriation efforts of two brothers who had fled from Vienna to Shanghai in 1938, while focusing on actions that reflected the individual and collective agency exercised throughout the complex repatriation process. Following this first panel, a lively discussion arose on the question of how agency concepts differ between disciplines, after a colleague with a social science background pointed out, that agency is perceived differently in sociology than the way we use this concept for our research. These interesting, unpredictable but valuable interactions make conferences like ENIUGH worth the time and effort.
Panel B discussed vulnerable and marginalized groups of refugees through three papers by Franziska Lamp (University of Vienna), Jessica Wehner (University Osnabrück) and Johannes Glack (University of Vienna). Johannes Glack based his talk about self-determination and agency of Jewish DPs with disabilities on findings from the Arolsen Archives and the Archives of the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and showed, how health problems influenced migration. Franziska Lamp on the other hand presented her research on displaced women from post-war Austria and highlighted the importance of a gendered analysis for DP-research. Jessica Wehner concluded this panel with a talk on Muslim DPs and how their migration was hindered. Through these papers, the presenters were able to give insights on migration processes of vulnerable and marginalized DPs on a global scale.
