SIEF 2025 Conference "Unwriting"

SIEF 2025 invited ethnologists, folklorists, anthropologists, and scholars from adjacent fields to do some unwriting: redo, seek or restore social justice, dismantle hegemonic frameworks which limit us to predetermined paths towards predictable conclusions.

Our PhD student, Roxana Fiebig-Spindler, attended and presented her research in the form of a lecture entitled 'Qualifications and training of transnational migrant care workers from Poland in Germany: (un)written narratives and ethnographic (un)writing'.

Current demographic, political and social developments, driven by economic inequalities, have led to a major crisis of care and social reproduction. To fill existing gaps in care provision, there is a growing demand for transnational migrant live-in senior care, which means that the work can be taken up by almost anyone. However, the migrant care workers themselves are ageing, with the majority being women in their 50s, 60s or even 70s. At the same time, this care model is highly contested because of its incompatibility with human and labor rights and its exploitation of social inequalities. Moreover, in the absence of legislation on the qualifications of carers and monitoring mechanisms, this model poses risks not only to carers but also to those receiving care. In recent years, however, transnational brokerage agencies have increasingly emerged as self-regulating actors, driving the formalisation, digitalisation and professionalisation of the sector, including specific training programmes for care workers.

Based on semi-structured interviews with caregivers and representatives of brokerage agencies, participant observation of (online) training courses and Facebook groups, and a content analysis of training materials, Roxana Fiebig-Spindler examined (un)written narratives about the qualifications and training of Polish care workers sent by agencies to Germany. Using an intersectional approach, she showed that the emphasis on so-called soft skills is based on traditional views of care work along gendered and ethnicised lines, which can reinforce social inequalities.