Dr. Sigrid Wadauer, Privatdoz. - Dr. Sigrid Wadauer, Privatdoz.

Areas of research

My research and publications deal with topics like

Work and livelihood practices: crafts, trades, precarious earnings and illegal practices, job search, labour contracts and aspects of coercion, …
Mobility and migration: journeymen’s tramping and travelling, vagrancy, itinerant trades, …
Ego-documents and the life course: autobiographical narratives, letters, protocols and statements…
Political struggles and state policy: trade legislation, labour, poverty, social rights and the right of residency…
(State) bureaucracy and bureaucratic interactions: administrative procedures, police and court records, practices of identification and registration, …

The focus is on the area of Central Europe from the late 18^th to the mid-20^th century.

Approach and basic principles of my research

I am particularly interested in examining how social facts are produced in consensus and conflict. I study practices and interactions, considering various contexts and constellations and the perspectives of the parties involved. This necessarily includes those practices which seem powerless and ineffective at first glance. In my research, I use a broad variety of source material and I apply both qualitative and quantitative methods. Geometric Data Analysis (Multiple Correspondence Analysis) is an excellent tool which enables a systematic comparison of complex and diverse cases in their numerous aspects while it also supports relational thinking and a reflexive construction of one’s research subject.