Iwona Dadej

Iwona Dadej is a historian specializing in gender and women's movements in Central and Eastern Europe. She served as a Scholarship Holder at the WZB (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung) from 2008 to 2011, working on a Volkswagen Foundation-funded project examining transnational struggles for recognition among women and Jewish communities across 20th-century France, Germany, and Poland. Her doctoral research at the Free University Berlin's Institute of East European Studies focused on the history of German and Polish women's movements around 1900.

Her academic background includes:

• Studies in History at Jagiellonian University (Krakow) and Albert-Ludwig University (Freiburg), 1996-2004
• Doctoral project at Free University Berlin's Institute of East European Studies, 2006 onward

Dadej's research explores the intersections of gender, spatial dynamics, and transnational networks within women's activism. Her work emphasizes how migration patterns, scientific discourse, and citizenship frameworks shaped feminist mobilization in Central Europe. She investigates how women navigated state structures while building cross-border solidarity, particularly focusing on urban environments as sites of political contestation and community formation during pivotal historical transitions.

Her 2010 publications reveal consistent analytical threads: spatial dimensions of women's organizing in Central Europe, intimate relationships as political infrastructure within movements, and the afterlives of early feminist figures in contemporary LGBTQ+ activism. Collectively, these works demonstrate her methodological commitment to recovering marginalized voices through transnational and intersectional lenses, bridging micro-historical analysis with broader European historical narratives.

Her scientific recognition includes:

• Volkswagen Foundation Scholarship (2008-2011) for Transnationalization of Struggles for Recognition project
• Doctoral Fellowship at Institute of European History in Mainz (2007)

Dadej secured significant research funding including Volkswagen Foundation support for her transnational recognition project and conducted foundational work on German-Polish women's education movements before and after WWI. Her collaborative approach is evident in participation with the WZB's Research Group on Civil Society, Citizenship, and Political Mobilization in Europe, where she contributed historical perspectives to contemporary debates about civic engagement and identity politics.

As a core member of the WZB's Civil Society research group, she developed comparative frameworks analyzing how women's movements negotiated state boundaries while building transnational advocacy networks. Her work on spatial politics within movements particularly informed the group's investigations into how civil society organizations operate across jurisdictional divides.