Nancy Wingfield

Nancy Wingfield received a $5,013 BIAAS grant for her book project on everyday life in Allied-occupied Vienna from 1945 to 1955, focusing on gender relations.

Her research offers fresh perspectives on the connections between sexual exchange and power relations by demonstrating that the Viennese experience of occupation varied by zone, age, class, familial structure, and gender. Viennese women did not necessarily consider themselves victims, nor did they behave as victims, in their interactions with occupation troops. The commodification of sex—trading sex for money/goods—is a survival strategy that some women, many working class, long employed under economic duress.

The chapter is part of a larger project, a socio-cultural study of everyday life in Vienna.