Open AccessAttitudes towards asylum seekers in rural areas: disrupting ideas of polarization by including indifference
Author(s) -
Victoria Reitter
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
zeitschrift für diversitätsforschung und –management/zeitschrift für diversitätsforschung und -management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2367-3060
pISSN - 2367-3079
DOI - 10.3224/zdfm.v5i1.03
Subject(s) - refugee , ethnography , polarization (electrochemistry) , seekers , population , social psychology , context (archaeology) , sociology , rural population , field (mathematics) , field research , criminology , psychology , political science , geography , social science , law , demography , anthropology , chemistry , mathematics , archaeology , pure mathematics
Based on ethnographic field research, this paper deals with the attitudes of the local population towards newly arrived asylum seekers in a rural, peripheral town in Austria. The empirical data show that positive and negative attitudes are linked equally to three clusters of arguments: those that invoke the rural context, those that relate to social dynamics within the community and those that highlight the appearance and behavior of asylum seekers. What all of these arguments have in common is that the welcoming refugees is based on some form of condition. However, what remains hidden in this observation is the ‘nonattitude’ of indifference, which is also found among the population and can disrupt polarized images of exclusively negative or positive attitudes towards newcomers.