Kerstin von Lingen

© Barbara Mair

"Global Resettlement Regimes: Ambivalent Lessons learned from the Postwar (1945-1951)": During and after the Second World War, millions of people in Europe and Asia were displaced from their homes and a new international order after 1945 developed. Previous historical research lacks an understanding of the complex practices of resettlement. By using archival as well as digital humanities methods, historian Kerstin von Lingen and her team want to fill this gap. Varied experiences of individual actors will be linked to the grand story of international humanitarian law, questions of post-imperial state-building, citizenship and identity formation. This project will reveal the policies of nation-states and international organisations, as well as highlight the agency of refugees and their own 'resettlement strategies'. The research team aims to explain how societies can cope with the enormous task of mass resettlement and how they resolve the question of integration. The politics of resettlement are seen as central to the creation of a global order in this project. The innovative investigation also contributes to a better understanding of today's world, with the current large-scale movements of refugees and economic migrants. The research project is funded by an ERC Advanced Grant amounting to 2.2 million euros.