Inside Refugee Support Work

An Ethnography of Language, Labour and Subjectivity

By: Jonas Hassemer

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Hardcover | 14 April 2026

At a Glance

Hardcover
302 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.7 x 15.7 x 2.4

Hardcover

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Presents a situated, ethnographically grounded, sociolinguistic critique of politics of difference and inequality in contemporary Central Europe.

This book explores the construction of 'languaged' and professional subjectivities in the context of refugee support work in Austria. It presents ethnographic insights into how language and linguistic practice come to matter both as part of a migration infrastructure in transformation, and in the efforts within a particular institution to reinvent itself as it struggles for survival in the context of shrinking public and state support for refugee provision.

The author focuses on how transformation processes play out in counsellors' and volunteer interpreters' conceptions of themselves as professionals and speaking subjects when confronted with the political and ethical dilemmas of an increasingly precarised work context. It becomes clear that language, while being central to the services offered, remains a sign of Otherness in a 'languaged' institutional order.

Industry Reviews

This fascinating ethnography of an Austrian refugee support organisation provides an exceptionally unique window into the fault lines of inequality constituting the neoliberalised workplace in the non-profit sector. Through an extremely thorough analysis of empirical data, Hassemer builds a compelling case for centring language in the analysis of contemporary labour.

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