Project data

Project name:	Transgenerational effects on families after forced migration. What can be learnt from history(ies)? (Part 1)
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Project management:	Prof Dr Maria Borcsa
Employee:	Julia Hille Paula Witzel Fady Guirgis Leonie Krahl
Running time:	10/2020 - 12/2025
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Third-party donors:	German Society for Systemic Therapy, Counselling and Family Therapy; ISRV

Summary of the project

The aim of this study is to

1. the structural reconstruction of family patterns of processing and transgenerational transmission of experiences in German and Polish families who experienced flight and expulsion in the context of the Second World War,
2. analysing the influence of social and cultural contexts on transgenerational processing and on family rules and values,
3. the development of recommendations for action for current psychosocial practice with refugee families.

While family research is usually rooted in a methodological nationalism (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2010), in which the focus is on Differences in a comparison of nations, this project - also in the sense of European understanding - will the structural similarities of the families studied took centre stage.

The families analysed have the following characteristics in common: they consist of at least three generations, with the oldest generation having personally experienced the flight and expulsion. The generational structure is made up of a grandparent generation (born between 1930-1939); the parent generation (born between approx. 1955-1975) and a grandchild generation (born between approx. 1980-2000).

The research project is being carried out in collaboration with the following partners:

• Faculty of Medicine, Jagiellonian University, Krakow (Poland): Prof. Dr med. habil. Mariusz Furga?, Dr phil. Bernadetta Janusz,
• University of Opole (Poland): Prof. Dr theol. habil. Pawe? Landwójtowicz
• Pedagogical University of Krakow (Poland), Prof. Dr habil. Ma?gorzata ?wider.

Faculty of Human Sciences, MSH Medical School Hamburg, Prof. Dr habil. Dietmar J. Wetzel

Brief description of the project:

Five families are interviewed in today's Nowy Las (Poland) who were resettled from the former eastern Poland (Kozowa, today Ukraine) and already lived together there in a village community. Similarly, communal structures were preserved when families from the former Neuwalde (Silesia/now Nowy Las) settled in Bohmte (Lower Saxony, Germany); five families from this group were also interviewed.

In total, one narrative individual interview with the representative of the oldest generation, one couple interview with the middle generation and one family interview with at least one representative from all three generations will take place. All interviews are initially analysed in Polish or German using individual case reconstructive methods; these are supplemented by ethnographic observation protocols. The individual case studies make it possible to test the research design and, if necessary

adapt.

Impact of the corona pandemic on research:

Due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the research process was switched to digital alternatives. As face-to-face meetings could not be realised for the most part, individual interviews were conducted via a cloud-based video conferencing service. Some of the family interviews were postponed to a later date; the ethnography in Nowy Las and Bohmte also had to be suspended for the time being.