It was great fun presenting a conference paper on returns of retirement, an extension of a blogpost I wrote earlier and based on data collected by the Museum of Yugoslavia and the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. My paper was part of a panel entitled “Between past and future: memory and the workers’ perspective.” My dear colleagues from Greece and Bulgaria were co-panelists. Anna Batzeli’s paper discussed the role of memory in revisiting the Gastarbeiter agreement between Greece and Germany and Mila Maeva’s paper looked at the Bulgarian medical staff as guest workers during the socialist period.
Some of the questions my paper tackles are: What is the role of museums in generating knowledge about migration? What are the methodological challenges of answering a research question based on data collected for a museum exhibit? Set against the grand historical background of Cold War political dynamics and bilateral guest worker program between Yugoslavia and various Western European countries, my paper attempts to answer an overarching research question: What can be learnt about returns of retirement, when considering personal reflections and belongings of returning retirees?
I am currently developing the conference paper into a contribution for an edited volume prepared with colleagues from the Labour Migration Working Group of the ELHN. For now, check out the slides for my presentation, and full paper to come soon. Here you can learn more about the ELHN Conference and the Labour Migration Working Group.