Usage and Meaning

“Usage and Meaning” 
 an Empiric Sociological Study
Dec 2007- may 2008

»Fed up with constantly doing nothing«: this is how female migrants themselves describe their situation of imposed waiting, inaction and idleness — from which they would love to escape as quickly as possible. A situation that can be understood as a not recognized potential for volunteering engagement, for acting in the civil society, for processes of sustainability.

»Step by step« emphasized on the situation of women with migration background and shows the connection between the situation of migrants and the topic of sustainability (environment, mobility, integration, working) and the topic of participation. With a mix of participatory sociological and coaching methods, we managed in pioneering in an interactive setting with the target group of female migrants. The openness and the large space that the female migrants accord to the topics of ecology, living environment an social competence shows that all the fields of sustainability have their place notwithstanding the pressure that lays on these women‘s shoulders, and that they are linked togehter in a unseparable way.

Nature, natural environment, ecological challenges — the classical fields of environmental research — were discussed in the workshops as well as in the photo interviews in an intensive way. The willingness to participate reaches from the wish to cooperate in the school or to convert to ecological farming and up to the imagination
to take on to the street in order to defend the women‘s rights (specially those of your own daughter), even in a small village in lower Austria. Ecological and social topics are considerated as unseperable and they have a great potential to include female migrants into processes of civil society.
This engagement can lead to »emotional coownership«, a basic condition for the question if people become active within their society. In the reverse conclusion, this active engaging strengthens your own position in the society.