Helga Amesberger

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Helga Amesberger (* 1960 in Waizenkirchen , Upper Austria ) is an Austrian ethnologist , sociologist and political scientist . She has been working at the Vienna Institute for Conflict Research (IKF) since the early 1990s .

Education and employment

Helga Amesberger studied ethnology and sociology at the University of Vienna and graduated with a master's degree . In addition, she did a doctorate at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Vienna and received her doctorate in 2005 with a thesis on the dominance culture approach in comparison to Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) in the USA and in German-speaking countries. Since 1993 she has been a research assistant at the Institute for Conflict Research in Vienna, where she often works with the social scientist Brigitte Halbmayr and sometimes publishes with her. Amesberger also worked at the University of Vienna as a lecturer at the Institute for Political Science and at the Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology . She has also taught at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt (2014), the Institute for Legal Basics at the Karl-Franzens-University Graz (since WS 2019/20) and at the Center for Teacher Education at the University of Vienna (WS 2019/20). She is a founding member of the ARGE Wiener Ethnologinnen .

Her main research interests are prostitution policy, violence against women , racism , National Socialism and the Holocaust, as well as feminist research . In the area of ​​historical social research, Helga Amesberger is particularly dedicated to the survivors of the Mauthausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps . Together with Brigitte Halbmayr, she was responsible for the “Mauthausen Contemporary Witness Project”, in which around 800  interviews were conducted with survivors of Mauthausen concentration camp in a total of 23 countries under the academic direction of historian Gerhard Botz from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Historical Social Science in Vienna . A study on the surviving women of the Mauthausen concentration camp, which builds on this interview project, was completed in 2010. The volume " Mauthausen revisited ", co-edited by Amesberger, shows how schoolchildren take photographs of their impressions of the memorial .

The works on the Austrians in the women's concentration camp Ravensbrück, which Amesberger has been writing with colleagues since the mid-1990s, are extensive. The two-volume publication “From life and survival - ways to Ravensbrück. The Women's Concentration Camp in Memory ” (2001) provides documentation and analysis of biographical interviews on the one hand, and provides insight into the biographies of around 40 Austrian survivors on the other. With the volume “Sexualized violence. Female Experiences in Nazi Concentration Camps ” (2004), Helga Amesberger and her colleagues Katrin Auer and Brigitte Halbmayr created a standard work on a subject that has not been discussed much. The research project she carried out together with Brigitte Halbmayr and Kerstin Lercher on the “registration of names of formerly imprisoned Austrians in the Ravensbrück concentration camp” came to an end in 2009. In 2013 the interactive website ravensbrueckerinnen.at went online, on which you can find a lot of information about the Ravensbrück concentration camp and the Austrians in the Ravensbrück concentration camp as well as materials such as videos, photos and teaching and learning materials. In her most recent research she deals with the persecution of women who were stigmatized as "anti-social" under National Socialism as well as the resistance activities of women and their tradition.

In addition to various scientific studies (see publications), Amesberger published numerous articles in specialist journals and compilations on the subject of the National Socialist persecution of women.

Since 2010, Helga Amesberger has also been researching the subject of sex work . Together with her Dutch colleagues Hendrik Wagenaar and Sietske Altink, she presented an informative comparative study on prostitution policy in Austria and the Netherlands, which was published in 2017 under the title “Designing Prostitution Policy. Intention and Reality in Regulating the Sex Trade ”was published by Policy Press. In 2014 Amesberger published a monograph on sex work in Austria. Amesberger is also active in national and international working groups and networks in the field of prostitution policy.

Another research focus of Amesberger is violence against women in close social areas. Together with Birgitt Haller, she is researching intimate partner violence against women in general and against specific groups of women (e.g. older women, women with specific needs). How the police and the judiciary deal with domestic violence are central issues.

Volunteering

  • Austrian Camp Community Ravensbrück & Freundinnen eV (ÖLGRF): Member since 1995, treasurer since 2000; Austrian delegate to the International Ravensbrück Committee (IRK) from 2004–2011
  • Society for Political Enlightenment since 2008
  • ARGE Wiener Ethnologinnen: founding member (1994) and treasurer
  • Public forum in the House of Austrian History since 2016

Awards

For her work on Austrian women in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, Helga Amesberger and Brigitte Halbmayr received the Käthe Leichter Prize for women's research, gender research and equality in the world of work in 2011 , awarded by the Austrian Chamber for Workers and Employees as a recognition award for the Käthe- Lighter price.

For her previous complete scientific work in the field of historical social research, she and Brigitte Halbmayr were awarded the 2019 Science Prize of the Margaretha Lupac Foundation of the Austrian Parliament.

Fonts (selection)

  • Helga Amesberger, Brigitte Halbmayr and Simon Clemens: "My mom was a resistance fighter" - networks of resistance and its significance for the next generation. Picus-Verlag, Vienna 2019.
  • Helga Amesberger, Brigitte Halbmayr and Elke Rajal: “Work shy and morally degenerate”. Persecution of women as "anti-social" under National Socialism. Mandelbaum-Verlag, Vienna 2019.
  • Birgitt Haller and Helga Amesberger: Victims of intimate partner violence in contact with the police and the judiciary. Series of publications of the Weißer Ring Forschungsgesellschaft, Volume 9, Studien-Verlag, Innsbruck 2019.
  • Hendrik Wagenaar, Helga Amesberger and Sietske Altink: Designing prostitution policy. Intention and reality in regulating the sex trade. Policy Press, Bristol 2017.
  • Helga Amesberger: Sex work in Austria. A political field between pragmatism, moralization and resistance. New Academic Press, Vienna 2014. ISBN 978-3-7003-1878-1
  • Helga Amesberger and Brigitte Halbmayr: The privilege of invisibility. Racism from the point of view of whiteness and dominance culture . Braumüller , Vienna 2008 (= series of studies on conflict research, vol. 22), ISBN 978-3-7003-1673-2 .
  • Helga Amesberger and Kerstin Lercher: Living memory. The history of the Austrian camp community Ravensbrück. Mandelbaum-Verlag, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-85476-254-6 .
  • Helga Amesberger, Katrin Auer and Brigitte Halbmayr: Sexualized violence. Female experiences in Nazi concentration camps . 3rd edition, Mandelbaum-Verlag, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-85476-219-5 .
  • Helga Amesberger: Forgotten and swept under the carpet - women in the resistance . In: Sabine Aschauer-Smolik / Alexander Neunherz (ed.): Against hold. Civil courage and resistance . Studien-Verlag, Innsbruck 2006, ISBN 3-7065-4183-1 , pp. 51-74.
  • Helga Amesberger and Brigitte Halbmayr (eds.): Right-wing extremist parties - a possible home for women? Leske and Budrich , Opladen 2002, ISBN 3-8100-3366-9 . (Collection of articles, contributions partly in German, partly in English)
  • Helga Amesberger and Brigitte Halbmayr: On life and survival - ways to Ravensbrück. The women's concentration camp in memory . Verlag Promedia, Vienna 2001 (= Edition traces); Volume 1: Documentation and Analysis , ISBN 3-85371-175-8 ; Volume 2: Life stories , ISBN 3-85371-176-6 .
  • Helga Amesberger and Brigitte Halbmayr: Racism. Selected analyzes by African-American scientists . Braumüller, Vienna 1998 (= series of studies on conflict research, vol. 12), ISBN 3-7003-1239-3 .
  • Helga Amesberger and Brigitte Halbmayr: “Schindler's List”. Feature films as an instrument of political education in Austrian schools . Braumüller, Vienna 1995 (= series of studies on conflict research, vol. 9), ISBN 3-7003-1107-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. http://www.ikf.ac.at/m_amesb.htm
  2. a b Mag.a Dr Helga Amesberger. In: Employees [...] Institute for Conflict Research (IKF), Vienna, accessed on April 22, 2010 .
  3. Short biography and reviews of works by Helga Amesberger at perlentaucher.de , accessed on April 22, 2010.
  4. ^ Institute for Conflict Research - Female Prisoners in Mauthausen Concentration Camp and its satellite camps (main study). May 2, 2016, accessed December 18, 2019 .
  5. Mauthausen revisited - REMEMBER: NATIONAL SOCIALISM AND HOLOCAUST. Retrieved December 18, 2019 .
  6. Institute for Conflict Research - Name registration of the formerly imprisoned Austrians in the Ravensbrück concentration camp - Expansion of archive research. September 24, 2015, accessed December 18, 2019 .
  7. Helga Amesberger, Brigitte Halbmayr and Elke Rajal: “Asocial and moral degenerate”. Persecution of women as "anti-social" under National Socialism . Mandelbaum, Vienna 2019.
  8. Helga Amesberger, Brigitte Halbmayr and Simon Clemens: "My mom was a resistance fighter". Networks of resistance and its importance for the next generation . Picus, Vienna 2019.
  9. ^ Helga Amesberger: Publications. In: Employees [...] Institute for Conflict Research (IKF), Vienna, accessed on April 22, 2010 .
  10. Policy Press | Designing Prostitution Policy - Intention and Reality in Regulating the Sex Trade, By Hendrik Wagenaar, Helga Amesberger and Sietske Altink. Retrieved December 18, 2019 (UK English).
  11. ^ Helga Amesberger: Sex work in Austria. A political field between pragmatism, moralization and resistance . new academic press, 2018.
  12. Institute of Conflict Research - Dr.in Helga Amesberger. Retrieved December 18, 2019 .
  13. Science Award 2019. Accessed December 18, 2019 .