The project centers on photographs and letters sent by “guest workers” to family members in Turkey between 1960 and 1989. These primary materials are complemented by official documents and recently conducted biographic-narrative interviews. The project follows a reconstructive approach by triangulating interpretative methods: biographical case reconstruction, visual segment analysis, and figurative hermeneutics. Analysis is undertaken via a case-study approach according to the principles of theoretical sampling. The aim is to reveal the complex interactions between different modes of expression (visual/verbal), time relations (now/then), and spatial constellations (here/there).

Faime Alpagu studied Sociology in Istanbul and Vienna. Until 2017, she worked on various academic projects and as a freelance interpreter (Kurdish and Turkish) for organizations such as Vienna Women’s Refuge, Hemayat – Center for Survivors of Torture and War, and the Diakonie Refugee Service. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Vienna. Her dissertation project is funded by a doctoral scholarship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and received the 2016 Dissertation Award for Research on Migration from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 2019 she was a Junior Visiting Fellow at The Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna. Her current research areas are migration/refugee studies, biographical research, visual sociology, memory, and interpretive social research.