Recollection as Social Practice – Families during Migration between the Past and the Present

Whereas a focus on forms, possibilities, and conditions of integration in the receiving society is commonly prevalent in questions concerning current flight movements, this ethnographically designed research project, which surveys besides participatory observations also family discussions, among other things, focuses less the integration possibilities into the receiving society, but rather the interfamilial processes of recollection and constitution subject to conditions of flight movements that are incorporated into a specific social context. Within the course of arriving in a new context, the matter is not only to find his or her place as an individual, but also to pass on family pictures and memories within families. Following this, social recollection practices of families during migration are at the center of the project. Questions that are addressed in the process, for instance, read as follows: How do families constitute themselves during migration? How do they classify the “old” and the “new” world as well as the flight passage? How do they give meaning to their everyday life and the familiar and alien routines? To what extent are memories and shared experiences important for community formation processes within the family? What role do languages play that are constituted as appropriate to themselves or as other?