Pakkomuuttojen uhrit ja etno-kansalliset kategorisoinnit Euroopassa, 1943-1948 (ExpCat)


Päärahoittaja

Rahoittajan antama koodi/diaarinumero339500


Päärahoittajan myöntämä tuki (€)

  • 480 181,00


Rahoitusohjelma


Hankkeen aikataulu

Hankkeen aloituspäivämäärä01.09.2021

Hankkeen päättymispäivämäärä31.08.2025


Tiivistelmä

Our project examines fundamental aspects of Europe’s immediate post-World War II settlement whose long-term legacies and implications extend to the present. We analyze the ethno-national categorization of the population groups labelled ‘expellees’, i.e. refugees expelled across emerging inter-state borders as national minorities, whose numbers swelled to 18 million and who assumed particular significance within wider blueprints of reconstruction. We investigate the complex ways in which the co-ethnicity and national belonging of expellees was defined, negotiated and perceived as a key component of nation (re-)building. Chronologically, we focus on the ‘postwar moment’, a crucial transitional phase between ca. late 1943 and 1948, which we view not only as a sequel or a prequel to momentous events, but as a brief epoch of indeterminacy and possibility that has left many long-term traces in post-1945 Europe. Our analysis focuses on the collision of two sets of imperatives in the classification and treatment of expellees. Powerful homogenizing forces, primarily from above, sought to impose exclusive ethno-national labels on them, with the goal of building homogeneous nation states. Meanwhile, complicated dynamics prevailed among the expellees themselves: some felt a strong affiliation with their purported nation, while others lacked or resisted exclusive national allegiances, at least initially, having hitherto lived in multi-ethnic borderlands where regional identities often trumped or at least challenged national allegiances. The result was complicated and prolonged tension and conflict on the ground in the emerging post-1945 polities as the authorities and the population, both newly arrived expellees and more established residents, engaged in complex processes of redefining and renegotiating the boundaries of the postwar national community. We analyze these processes with an interdisciplinary research team that employs a comparative, transnational and intersectional framework, manifest in four closely co-ordinated case studies that draw on an extensive primary source base and foreground frequently neglected, experiential grassroots perspectives. We connect national cases, highlight their similarities and differences, and open new transnational and comparative perspectives on Europe’s early postwar era. We also challenge inward-looking national historiographies and myths of national singularity and homogeneity whose effects extend to the present.


Vastuullinen johtaja


Päävastuullinen yksikkö


Seurantakohteet

ProfiloitumisalueHyvinvoinnin tutkimuksen yhteisö (Jyväskylän yliopisto JYU) JYU.Well


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Viimeisin päivitys 2024-11-10 klo 14:30