EINLADUNG - GASTVORTRAG AN DER UNIVERSITÄT BONN // INVITATION - GUEST LECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BONN: Monday, 28.04.2025

 DE (Scroll for ENG ⬇️ )

Herzliche Einladung zu diesem Gastvortrag am 28.04.2025 in der Abteilung für Südasienstudien der Universität Bonn.

// // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // 

 ENG 

You are warmly invited to this guest lecture on April 28, 2025, at the Department of South Asian Studies, University of Bonn. The lecture will be held in German, with a bilingual Q&A session to follow. Stay tuned for upcoming presentations in English at various conferences. Below is the English description of the upcoming lecture in Bonn.

"In the Global North, the recruitment of qualified nurses from the Global South is often seen as a solution to the increasing challenges faced by strained healthcare systems. The Indian state of Kerala plays a particularly important role in contemporary nurse migration.

This guest lecture explores the origins of migration movements from Kerala to Germany in the 1960s from the perspective of historical migration research. In post-war Germany, the economic boom accelerated the modernization and expansion of the nursing sector, resulting in a tremendous gendered demand for labor: women who were expected to see nursing as a “calling.” To address labor shortages in Catholic hospitals, religious orders began recruiting women from Christian networks in Kerala starting in 1960. This church-led model soon attracted the attention of the German state. Beginning in 1964, under the directive of the Minister of the Interior of Baden-Württemberg, Catholic actors recruited “Indian girls” from Kerala for public healthcare institutions within the framework of the hybrid “Nirmala Program,” which operated at the intersection of state and ecclesiastical law.

This migration movement quickly transformed into a chain migration, through which several thousand women entered the German nursing sector over the following years. These long-overlooked fragments of history are closely connected to today’s migration of healthcare professionals from India. Based on fieldwork conducted in India in 2023 and 2025, this lecture builds a bridge between historical developments and present-day trends.

Tobias Santosh Großmann studied South Asian Studies at Heidelberg University and International Relations at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (KU). He completed his PhD at the Chair of Economic and Social History at KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, focusing on the historical genesis of nurse migration. His dissertation,„Fachkräftemigration - Pflegenotstand - Nächstenliebe: Katholische Frauen aus Kerala (Indien) in deutschen Krankenhäusern der 1960er" ("Skilled Migration – Nursing Crisis – Christian Charity: Catholic Women from Kerala (India) in German Hospitals of the 1960s"), was published by Springer VS in 2024."

#fachkräftemigration #pflegenotstand #nächstenliebe #phd #migration #SouthAsianstudies #UniversitätBonn #UniversityofBonn #CarmenBrandt #carelabour #india #kerala #germany #1960 #1964 #gastarbeiter #kueichstätt #nirmala #gastarbeiterinnen #Wiesloch #PZNWiesloch #Emmendingen #Stettfeld #Erzdiözesefreiburg #thrissur #thiruvalla #trivandrum #kochi #ernakulam #pflegenotstand #pflegekräfte #migrantinnen #fromkeralatogermany #springervs #Pflegegeschichte #IndischePflegekräfte #Hubert #Debatin #Leelamma #Nadamala