Dr. Pauli Aro, BA MA Mres
Research associate in the ERC research group GLORE – "Global Resettlement Regimes: Ambivalent Lessons learned from the Postwar (1945-1951)"
Contact details
E-Mail: pauli.aro@univie.ac.at
Curriculum Vitae and list of publications
Pauli Aro is a historian and has been a postdoc researcher at the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna since October 2023 as part of the Advanced ERC Grant project "GLORE. Global Refugee Regimes".
In his previous work, he mainly dealt with nationalist mobilisation in Central Europe. In his master's thesis at the University of Vienna, he examined the flexible autobiographical narrative of Ernst Frank, a writer and representative of the Sudeten German Nazi movement. In his dissertation at the European University Institute, Florence, he examined attempts by nationalist, political and state actors to mobilise and politically co-opt German migrants from the crown lands of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in the territory of present-day Austria between 1900 and 1960. These "Germans" were often considered to be members of ethnically and territorially closed groups that were particularly susceptible to nationalist mobilisation. However, the difficulties of various activists in reaching such supposed collectives in their entirety show that everyday hardships and social differences often had a greater significance than the assumed bonds between "compatriots" and the identification with ideas of "ethnic group" and "homeland".
In the context of "GLORE", he is looking at the position of refugees classified as "Volksdeutsche" in the refugee regime after the Second World War and the interconnection between humanitarian projects and national economic considerations. Based on the example of the former German-speaking inhabitants of the municipality of Ruma in present-day Serbia, questions of the scope for action of refugees and social dynamics will be addressed.
Key Research Topics
- History of Central Europe from the 19th to the 21st century
- Nationalism and national mobilisation
- Social activism, welfare, humanitarism
- Histories of migration
- Cultures of remembrance