Exposing Complexity in Migration Narratives : Archival and Empirical Self-Representations of Guest Workers in Austria

This book examines the lived experiences of "guest workers" from Turkey in Austria since the 1960s through their own voices and personal archives. It will appeal to postgraduate students, researchers, and policymakers across sociology, migration studies, history, memory studies, and archive studies.

This book examines the lived experiences of "guest workers" from Turkey in Austria since the 1960s through their own voices and personal archives. This pioneering study challenges homogenized perceptions by systematically analyzing migrants' biographies alongside their photographs, written correspondence, and audio letters, revealing the complex human stories behind simplified migration narratives. It also offers unique methodological innovations by triangulating interpretative approaches to explore interactions between different modes of expression, time relations, and spatial constellations. Drawing on three in-depth case studies from 50 biographical-narrative interviews, this study illuminates how gender, ethnicity, and religion intersect to shape the diverse experiences of “guest workers", including those of women and minoritized groups, such as Kurds and other religious minorities, while situating these trajectories within broader global labor-migration contexts. As such, it offers unprecedented access to migrants' self-representations and exposes the transformative nature of migration across generations. It will appeal to postgraduate students, researchers, and policymakers across multiple disciplines, including sociology, migration studies, history, memory studies, and archive studies, as well as to anyone interested in understanding migration beyond stereotypes and official narratives.