Beatrice Salamena
My research elaborates on the conjuncture of migration, care and conviviality. The ethnographic research took place at a vocational training school within a geriatric nurse assistant course for non-German speakers, targeting migrants and refugees. By looking at care from and within an educational and institutional setting, I was able to observe how migrants and teachers, who transmitted the knowledge of care, conceived of care and dealt with its economic, social and emotional aspects and how these encounters influenced the actors’ view of society and conviviality.
I focus on educational settings to explore the transmission of knowledge about care and its application in the everyday and professional lives of migrants. Looking at educational spaces as a focal point of professional formation and social relations located within social structure, I ask how knowledge about care is produced and transmitted. What kind of knowledge and experiences do migrants acquire within and about German society through their training as geriatric nurses? And how do relations develop between migrants and locals in school and in nursing homes in the context of caring?
At the conjuncture of migration and care, I illustrate how reflections on care, knowledge about care and caring relations enable individuals to perceive, reflect and question differences and inequalities. After following two classes of newcomers over a two-years course of becoming geriatric nurse assistants in Germany, I argue care practices and the social organization of care become tools for and a stage of social in- and exclusion.