New research project on Swedish women’s emigration to the United States
Dr Marie Bennedahl will join LNUC Concurrences as a postdoc researcher from June 2021. The position is funded by Växjö kommun and LNUC Concurrences
In 2020 Marie completed her PhD in History at Linnaeus University with a thesis titled Fall in Line. Gender, bodies and the memories of the American Civil War in Scandinavian reenactment. The research was based on autoethnographic fieldwork and interviews. After that Marie has been involved in research projects concerning reenactment and lived religion.
As a postdoc Marie will study the migration experiences of single women emigrating to the United States in the early 20th century and later returning to Sweden. The women in the study were interviewed between 1977 and 1980 in a project for the Swedish Emigration Institute. The women migrated during a time when the female emancipation movement grew and changed the position of women in society. By analysing aspects of belonging, community and identity the interaction between the emancipation and the migration process can be shown. The purpose of the project is to highlight two aspects of the Swedish emigration to the United States: returning migrants and the experience of single women.
