Inside Refugee Support Work

An Ethnography of Language, Labour and Subjectivity
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-1-80041-283-5
Verlag: Channel View Publications

Buch, Englisch, 248 Seiten, Format (B × H): 149 mm x 210 mm

Presents a situated, ethnographically grounded, sociolinguistic critique of politics of difference and inequality in contemporary Central Europe.

This book explores the construction of ‘languaged’ and professional subjectivities in the context of refugee support work in Austria. It presents ethnographic insights into how language and linguistic practice come to matter both as part of a migration infrastructure in transformation, and in the efforts within a particular institution to reinvent itself as it struggles for survival in the context of shrinking public and state support for refugee provision.

The author focuses on how transformation processes play out in counsellors’ and volunteer interpreters’ conceptions of themselves as professionals and speaking subjects when confronted with the political and ethical dilemmas of an increasingly precarised work context. It becomes clear that language, while being central to the services offered, remains a sign of Otherness in a ‘languaged’ instutional order.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hassemer, Jonas

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Soziolinguistik
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Bereichsspezifisches Management Office Management, Büroorganisation
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Allgemeines
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Arbeit/Sozialpädagogik Community Care, Bildung, Freizeit, Freiwilligenarbeit

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Figures, Tables and Examples

Transcirption Symbols

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. From Speaking Subjects at Work to Languaged Workers

Chapter 3. 'We Have No Apartments'

Chapter 4. The Emergency List

Chapter 5. Being a 'Good' Counsellor

Chapter 6. Arabic-Speaking Staff

Chapter 7. Managing Volunteer Interpreters

Chapter 8. The Value(s) of Volunteering

Chapter 9. Volunteers’ Meetings

Chapter 10. Conclusions and Outlook

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Hassemer, Jonas
Jonas Hassemer is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna, Austria. His research focuses on ethnographic approaches to language and social inequality, subjectivation, multilingualism and the lived experience of language.

Jonas Hassemer is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna, Austria. His research focuses on ethnographic approaches to multilingualism, language and social inequality, subjectivation and the lived experience of language.