Refugee studies in Austria today from challenges to a research horizon

Abstract

This article sets out to highlight present-day anthropological contribu-tions to the field of forced migration and to the current debates on this topic in Europe through the experience of developing an international and interdisciplin-ary network for the study of refugees based in Vienna, Austria. To this end, this article engages with the grounding facts of the present Central European sociohis-torical context and global political trends, grapples with shifting and questionable research funding landscapes such as the focus on “integration,” illustrates some of the main current research challenges, and highlights pressing topics. It concludes proposing a research horizon to counter present strong limitations on forced migration research and steer this research toward a more meaningful direction.