RECET Festival of History and Social Sciences in Cooperation with the University for Continuing Education Krems

The Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET), based at the University of Vienna, hosts every year its Festival of History and Social Sciences at the Altes AKH Campus in Vienna. This year, the University for Continuing Education Krems (UWK) joined the event as a partner institution for the first time.

During the official opening, Mag. Friedrich Faulhammer, Rector of the UWK, welcomed the festival and emphasized the importance of the diverse transformational processes that we face as a result of current crises—or that we must actively shape in response to today’s global challenges. He also pointed out that political, cultural, and ecological transformations are central to many research projects at the UWK. As an example, he highlighted the “Transformationsforum,” a platform created by the UWK to foster academic and societal dialogue on ecological change.

In his role as Chair of the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe (IDM)—another partner of RECET—Rector Faulhammer emphasized the shared regional focus on East-Central and Southeastern Europe as a common link between RECET and IDM.

He concluded by expressing his hope for deepened cooperation in the future among the UWK, the IDM, and RECET.

Keynote Lecture by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Julia Mourao Permoser

This year’s theme of the RECET Festival was migration, explored through multiple panel discussions, lectures, and workshops.

Julia Mourao Permoser, Professor of Migration and Integration at the University for Continuing Education Krems (UWK), delivered a keynote lecture examining the relationship between migration and human rights. She addressed the question of how widespread “migration myths” contribute to the politicization of the issue, and how a human rights-based discourse can be justified both morally and politically.

Professor Mourao Permoser argued that human rights are being “directly attacked” in current migration debates. She described this as a “politicization of human rights,” noting that these rights are no longer perceived as absolute, but are increasingly treated as subjects of political trade-offs.

She presented key data on global migration trends, emphasizing that a simplistic division between economically and humanitarian-motivated migration is misleading, as these motivations often overlap. She also criticized the use of “push and pull” factors, which, in her view, falsely suggest that the reasons for migration can be neatly categorized into pros and cons.

Returning to her central thesis at the end of her talk, Professor Mourao Permoser reaffirmed that migration is fundamentally a human rights issue, yet is often discussed in public discourse detached from this context. As an example, she cited debates on family reunification, which—she noted—touch on the internationally recognized human right to respect for private and family life. She strongly criticized how this right is “especially questioned when it concerns the most vulnerable,” describing this trend as a “dehumanization of migration subjects.” In this context, she once again stressed how closely migration and human rights are linked, stating: “Migration is being criticized, but what is really under attack are human rights.”

Panel Discussion about “European Dis/Orders”

The RECET Festival also featured a panel discussion on the project “European Dis/Orders,” a joint initiative by the UWK and the IDM. In a conversation between Mag. Sebastian Schäffer, Director of the IDM, and DDr. Péter Techet, Research Associate at the IDM, the project was introduced to a wider audience.

DDr. Techet laid out the theoretical foundations of the initiative: the project understands democracy as a dynamic process—and in that sense, as a form of “disorder.” In contrast, populism is framed as a promise of “new order,” posing a threat to pluralistic democracy.

The conversation then turned to specific examples of populist discourse. Given that borders were also a central topic of this year’s RECET Festival, the discussion addressed how populist narratives construct and manipulate the concept of borders: How are borders asserted in discourse? How are they used to exclude or to shift boundaries? And how does the notion of sovereignty—which populist parties claim to defend—get applied selectively, such as in denying Ukraine its right to self-determination?

The discussion highlighted the dual role of “borders” in the context of populism: on one hand, populist movements use them to exclude people socially; on the other, they push the boundaries of what can be said publicly—though only in one direction. Populism thus represents both external exclusion and internal discursive expansion.

Another topic addressed was the populist, anti-democratic use of the term sovereignty. Using the example of Hungary’s so-called “sovereignty protection” measures, DDr. Techet demonstrated how such rhetoric serves exclusionary politics. Mag. Schäffer added that populist forces in Europe even go so far as to deny Ukraine—an invaded state—the very sovereignty they claim to uphold. In the audience discussion that followed, participants explored the differences between legal-international and populist-political understandings of sovereignty.

Photos: Peter Techet, Jannis Panagiotidis.