Centre for Historical Migration Research (Zentrum für historische Migrationsforschung, zhmf)
Head of department: Oliver Kühschelm
The Centre for Historical Migration Research (zhmf) addresses migration and mobility from a historical perspective: labour migration as well as flight, expulsion, and exile. The zhmf examines not only migrations over long distances but also small-scale movements. One focus is on how people linked villages, small towns, and metropolises regionally and supra-regionally through their migratory movements – within and across administrative and national borders. The department’s temporal focus is on the modern era, from the eighteenth century to the present, and its geographical focus is on Lower Austria and its neighbouring countries.
The zhmf focuses on different evaluations of migration and their social and political consequences: the appreciation of elite mobility as well as the problematization of mobility and migrating people in terms of their gender and social, national, and racist attributions.
The zhmf uses theories and methods of cultural studies and social sciences to contribute to interdisciplinary migration research. It conducts basic research and communicates with the public. In this way, it promotes a differentiated discussion about migrations and mobilities.
