ARBEITERINNEN
PRACUJĄCE KOBIETY

Social decline looks very differently throughout Europe: in its existential threat, in the personal sentiment or the socio-political suspension. The documentary project examines how the relation between identity and work has been developing throughout three women generations in working-class families in Germany and Poland: Which correlation is there between the experience of social decline and political bearings, expectations as well as wishes? Does imminent or increasing poverty foster segregating behavior towards others and does it even amplify the tendency to let racism become a legitimate instrument within politics again? What does a change of perspective from and on two different countries reveal? Is mutual solidarity possible?
A comparing view on Europe is meant to show how working biographies today liquefy, entire fields of work disappear, gender- and family models change. Over the course of a year werkgruppe2 hhas interviewed women from three generations who live in two structurally weak industrial regions (Ruhr area and Lower Silesia) which are characterized by a high rate of unemployment and poverty. The first-theatre-now-film-production, based on conversation transcripts, is exclusively told from the perspective of women as until today it is mainly them who in their housekeeping first feel the indications of impoverishness. It also is them, who’s perspectives have been mainly untold till now.