Our research is dedicated to the sociological interpretation of inequalities in transnational migration societies. We are based at the Department of Sociology, University of Vienna.
We introduce you here to our past, current and future research projects. Our publications can be accessed directly.
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer (head of INMI, assoc. Professor at the Department of Sociology), Clara Holzinger (co-head of INMI), Anna-Katharina Draxl (senior researcher), Yannic Wexenberger, Martina Kanovich, Alina Cristea, Hatice Veziroglu-Özmen and Melanie Kurek.
Mi, 19.11.2025 | 13:15-14:45 Uhr | Institut für Soziologie | Rooseveltplatz 2, 1090 Wien | Seminarraum 3 (1. Stock)
Die Forschungsgruppe „Interpreting Inequalities in Transnational Migration Societies“ (INMI) gibt in einem etwa 30-minütigen Vortrag Einblicke in ihre theoretischen Verortungen, Fragestellungen, Forschungsergebnisse sowie aktuelle Vorhaben rund um die Themen Migration und migrationsbedingte Vielfalt. Eine Verknüpfung zu theoretischen, methodologischen und methodischen Herausforderungen sowie die Besonderheiten des Forschens an der Universität (Verbindung von Lehre und Forschung; Fluktuation durch Kettenvertragsregeln) sollen zu einer Debatte vor Ort einladen.
Diskriminierung passiert nicht nur laut, sondern oft leise – in Blicken, Bemerkungen oder „kleinen“ Witzen. Genau hier setzt das Citizen-Science-Projekt „Diskriminierung gemeinsam erforschen“ an. Im Wissenschaftsradio der FHWien/WKO spricht Hannah Jutz mit den Sozialwissenschaftlerinnen Clara Holzinger und Anna-Katharina Draxl darüber, wie Forschung glaubwürdiger wird, wenn Menschen mit unterschiedlichen Hintergründen mitforschen. Interviewt wurden auch Co-Forscher:innenDeniel Takac, Katharina Kweta und Rob Anjinta über ihre Erfahrungen im Projekt.
Österreich forscht, Austria’s largest citizen science platform with over 40.000 site visits per year, supports the networking of citizen science practitioners, and expands the visibilty of citizen science projects.
Visit the project’s presentation on the platform here.
With the aim of expanding knowledge about discrimination and including more perspectives into data analysis, the research project „Researching discrimination with Citizen Science“ (Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [TCS 150]) organized interpretation workshops at the Department of Sociology, University of Vienna. In these workshops participants without research expercience in social sciences analyse and discuss qualitative data on (work) experiences of migrants in Vienna. A concluding workshop to reflect on the collaboration will take place in autumn.
Ethnoracial discrimination and stigmatization are difficult to grasp both in everyday life and in research, as they are often hidden behind naturalizations or justified with different rationales and intersectional categories. By involving people with different horizons of knowledge and experience in the analytical process, the Top Citizen Science project aims to deepen the sociological understanding of ethnoracial exclusion including the perspectives and interpretations of citizen scientists – thus expanding the interpretations of the academic researchers.
We organise interpretive workshops in which non-sociologically trained persons (who in part are themselves potentially affected by racism and ethnic discrimination) will participate. The aim of these workshops is, on the one hand, to contribute to a better understanding of racism by bringing a variety of perspectives into the analysis and thus opening the scope of interpretation by developing and discussing potentially more diverse and complex readings and interpretations. Thereby, we assume that research should be conceived as a communicative process and that the multiplication of perspectives fosters knowledge production. Also, we assume that this approach fosters the critical reflection of us researchers in regard to the embeddedness of research in racialized societal structures. On the other hand, the participants in the interpretation workshops should also benefit individually from the participation in the Citizen Science project by experiencing empowerment through a (deeper) understanding of structural discrimination mechanisms. We assume that the active participation of citizens can improve the quality of research and increase its social relevance. In general, we offer the participants the opportunity to participate in different phases of the research process, including the planning and implementation of the presentation of results at the end of the project.
The extension project has great potential to make an innovative contribution to methodological development, as the involvement of citizens in interpretation workshops is still exceptional in qualitative social research. Also, we aim to contribute to a better understanding of ethnoracial exclusion, as knowledge created in fundamental research can serve as a basis for anti-racism policies. Moreover, the main target group of CEE migrants is still largely unexplored in terms of racism.
Project period: 2025
Subsidy grantor: Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [TCS 150]
Cinzia Hirschvogl and Clara Holzinger (from the research project DeMiCo) talk about multilingual interviewing and methodological reflections in the Podcast „Methoden:Koffer“
The discussion addresses history and present of racism experienced by people from Eastern Europe in Austria and highlights the links between discrimination, labour migration and exploitation.
Keynote speech by Jannis Panagiotidis (University of Vienna) and discussion with activists Simona Ďurišová (IG24) und Sónia Melo (Sezonieri), hosted by Clara Holzinger and Niki Kubaczek (ÖGS, Austrian Association for Sociology)
