This paper seeks to contribute to debates on ethnic identification and migration through a focus on a specific group-Russian-speakers from the Baltic state of Latvia who have migrated to the UK. Twenty-six interviews with members of this group were gathered in London and the wider metropolitan area during 2012 and 2014. Russian-speakers represent uniquely combined configurations of 'the other within': in most cases, they are EU citizens with full rights; yet, some still hold non-citizens' passports of Latvia. While in Latvian politics Russian-speakers are framed as 'others' whose identities are shaped by the influence of Russia, interview findings confirm that they do not display belonging to contemporary Russia. However, London is the 'third space'-a multicultural European metropolis-which provides new opportunities for negotiating ethnic identification. Against the background of triple 'alienation' (from Latvia, from Russia and from the UK) we analyse how ethnicity is narrated intersectionally with other categories such as age and class. The findings show that Russian-speaking migrants from Latvia mobilise their Europeanness and Russianness beyond alienating notions of (ethno)national identity. The paper also demonstrates that being open to ethnicity as a category of practice helps us towards a progressive conceptualisation of often overlooked dimensions of integration of intra-EU linguistic 'others'.

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The proportion of the Russian-speaking population in Latvia increased dramatically during the Soviet period from 12% in 1935 to 42% in 1990 due to organised labour migration within the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, especially since the end of the 1990s, many Russian-speaking Latvians have migrated to Western countries. Very little is known about the national identities of these Russian-speaking Latvians. By analysing 30 life histories of Russian-speaking migrants from Latvia in Sweden and Great Britain, this study aims to analyse the transnational identities of Russian-speaking Latvians abroad. The analysis shows that the migrants’ own migration patterns in addition to the migration history of their families create interlinked and sometimes conflicting layers of transnational identity. Drawing on the interviews, three main processes in the identity formation were distinguished: aspiring to a Latvian identity, claiming an unrecognised Russian-speaking Latvian identity and developing transnational ‘non-belonging’.

Not all couples live together; some partners live far from each other, causing potential challenges to relationship maintenance in terms of keeping the relationship ongoing. In the present study, complications in relationship maintenance experienced by heterosexual long-distance partners in post-Soviet Latvia are analysed. The complications are examined in the light of social norms as conceptualized by Parsons and Shils (Toward a general theory of action. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1962) in their notion of dominant value orientations. The article suggests that the norm conflicts experienced by the long-distance partners are illustrative of the value transitions in societies undergoing rapid social change, such as in Latvia. The analysis is based on 19 in-depth interviews with individuals with long-distance relationship (LDR) experience. The social norms complicating or hindering LDR maintenance were found to be generation-specific and gender-specific. The interviewees born and raised in Soviet Latvia referred to collective-oriented norms while the interviewees born in the independent neo-liberal Latvia referred to their own interests that complicated their LDR maintenance.