DFG Project 2020/2024:
Research team: Prof. Dr. Westphal, Manuela; Korn, Franziska; Dr. Li-Gottwald, Jiayin; Aden, Samia
With the increase in refugee immigration, research and practice initially focused on the pressure to take action for the reception and integration of refugees. At the same time, family relationships and new questions for upbringing, education and socialization in families have so far been ignored. Both migration and family research lack findings on family generational relationships, family and parenting concepts and parenting practices in the context of flight and asylum. However, findings on (transnational) family upbringing in other migration groups in Germany can only be transferred to refugee families to a very limited extent due to, among other things, dominant residence regulations, but also a post-colonial framing and racism. The project focuses on family and parenting in the context of flight and asylum in Germany using the example of refugee families (members) from Somalia. It examines with whom and how family relationships and parenting practices are established, reorganized and negotiated. The focus of the research interest is on the changes triggered by refugee and asylum procedures and the dynamics of family intergenerational relationships at different levels of family production. Following a theory of family education, the interdependency structure between extended intergenerational relationships, refugee/asylum experiences and transnationality for family education will be analysed and systematized. For this purpose, the heuristics of doing and displaying family will be used. (1) family structures and the nature and density of extended family relationships and practices, (2) family images and symbolic representations of family and upbringing, (3) transnational family interactions and (4) reflections on family upbringing are recorded. A mixed-methods design is planned for the research. Different methods will be used step by step and in combination with each other, reflected upon in terms of research ethics and integrated into a joint reconstructive evaluation strategy. The aim of the project is to contribute to the further development and systematization of a theory of family education in order to overcome the previous narrow and normative approach to family structures and family education and to reflect the reality of migration society in theory and empiricism. By questioning Western-normative concepts of family upbringing and stereotypical generalizations about "the refugee" or the "African family" and by understanding resources and burdens in transnational, extended generational relationships more precisely, the project also aims to contribute to overcoming methodological nationalism in practical contexts.
