Thursday to Saturday, 23–25 June 2016, Innsbruck/Austria
Migration and Generation
In the discourse on migration and integration, generation is a very manifest feature for categorizing and distinguishing aspects of migration. Thus, for example, within the complex of immigration, a distinction is made between first and second generation migrants.
In this connection, the concept of generation points to an actual or supposed shared content of experience as constituted by the migration situation. As a rule, the concept of generations is not given further explication in these contexts; it would appear to be ‘self-explanatory.’ The fact of immigration evidently tends to mask and overshadow all other contents of experience.
Thus the question arises: in using the concept of generation in this way, is this more a symbolic-discursive employment or is it actually an analytical category?
Both those aspects need to be interrogated. The first gives rise to the impression of a kind of stepwise sequence of immigration and integration. The second seeks to describe shared features among members of the same age group who are living under comparable social conditions and in a specific historical context. In referring to shared generation-specific experiences, the intention often is to designate a jointly shared social, political or cultural under-standing of generation as an imagined social group, such as ‘Generation X.’
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Location: Australia