This paper analyses the contemporary structure and functioning of Dagestan’s rural communities in a context of internal Russian migration, particularly to the cities of Western Siberia. The concepts of transnationalism and translocality are deployed as a theoretical framework to analyse the migrant and his social world without detaching ourselves from the donor community, the djamaat. It is argued that the Dagestan rural community, in the course of the migration processes of recent decades, can no longer be viewed merely as a local social entity. A new translocal community has emerged, organized on the principle of the 'Global Village', that consists of migrants, their family members and non-migrants remaining in the home villages. Translocal migrants, existing simultaneously in several geographically separated points, continue to construct their identity and their social networks, a process that fosters a sense of belonging to a Dagestani village. The donor rural community is an important space where migrants can demonstrate personal successes and new entrepreneurial and philanthropic economic activities. Migrants invest not only in their own households but also help their native villages as a whole through entrepreneurial activity and financial support. In addition, the key moments of life remain rooted in the village. Migrants prefer to find a marriage partner from their home village. The home village is also seen to be the only acceptable burial place for deceased migrants. A major role in the consolidation of a translocal djamaat is played by Internet resources such as social networks and messenger programmes, which construct social networks and maintain communication among fellow countrymen in real time. This preference for preserving ties to one’s rural locality even after resettlement out of the village and the Republic of Dagestan, as well as the maintenance of translocal links, allow us to speak of a new social entity: the translocal community.
The article deals with the functioning of the sector of Islamic goods and services in Dagestan's urban space and the popular practices of consumption. It describes and analyzes various aspects of Islamic business: operation of the halal market, the sector of women's clothing, advertising strategies. Special attention is given to the issue of the hijab, its symbolic meaning, and its role in women's social life. The problem of Islamic consumption is viewed through the prism of the commodification of Islam, which affects both religious practices and the local economy. An intensive appeal to Islam in the city's social and economic space is not so much a sign of Islamic radicalization as it is a choice of cultural references in the society and the quest for new behavioral patterns. The emergence of new consumer attitudes puts before Dagestani society a problem of choice between European standards and a new identity-belonging to global Islamic civilization. The article draws upon the author's field materials of 2011-2015.
The translocal mode of labor migration between the Republic of Dagestan and the Arctic and subarctic cities of Western Siberia gives rise to specific practices of materiality associated with the transportation of things between sending and receiving societies. Food products in this series occupy the most prominent place both in terms of the scale of transfers and in terms of their importance in the daily life of migrants from Dagestan in northern cities.
The article analyzes various options and mechanisms for the movement of meat and meat products through Dagestan migrant networks. Attention will be paid to the movement of meat as a multi-stage process - from its preparation in Dagestan to the organization of a storage system in a migrant's family. In this case, both commercial transfers and family and compatriot parcels will be of interest, since in both cases similar schemes can be used and the same networks are involved. Meat, intended primarily for migrants, becomes a migrant itself in the process of shipment, its appearance in the place of migration is endowed with meanings and characteristics associated with migration between these regions as a whole.
Through the role and scale of the use of Dagestan meat in the daily practices of migrants' nutrition, the article demonstrates one of the aspects of constructing the translocal world of Dagestanis working in Arctic cities. In particular, of interest are the reciprocity regime both within the migrant community and between migrants and non-migrants in Dagestan, as well as the construction of symbolic representations of an abandoned house and a house built in migration, reflection on the degree of complementarity of the material worlds of Dagestan and the north, their fundamental differences and benefits.
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