‘I’m not a gastarbeiter anymore’: liminal mobility of young Kazakh IT professionals in Russia

Discrepant knowledge and interAsian mobilities: unlikely movements, uncertain futures

“…What different forms do these take? Feakins and Zemnukhova's (2018) paper explores these concerns through a focus on the interconnections that criss-cross Central Asia in the education of IT specialists and their future work mobilities into Russia. Focusing on Kazakhstan the authors show how educational and career opportunities are generated at the intersection of the geopolitical histories of the region in the Soviet and post-Soviet era, Turkish influence in schooling and the emergence of opportunities in Russian labour markets that are usually closed off to outsiders.…”

“…Beyond the role of agents, the elements in the infrastructure of knowledge mobilities can be less obvious but they are no less significant in supporting and directing flows. Feakins and Zemnukhova (2018), for example, point to the legacy of a Soviet infrastructure and Turkish linked schooling as pivotal foundations for the emergent post-Soviet tech migration that they observe. In this instance, high quality secondary schools in the former Soviet states not only prepare students in science and language skills but also the geographical imaginary that orientates them to the key cities of Russia for a cosmopolitan life, a thriving IT community and a variety of interesting projects and teams which enable learning as well as sociability.…”

“…Whilst our aim in that workshop was a broad engagement with emergent forms of knowledge mobilities in Asian cities, what became clear through dialogue was the significance of hitherto under-researched patterns and their significance for how scholars address the relationship between knowledge and mobility in Asia and beyond. These alternative knowledge mobilities include growing numbers of young people becoming educated and mobile in developing contexts in Asia (Kanagasabai, 2018), international students moving horizontally between similarily positioned educational systems (Yang, 2018), new kinds of educators who becoming part of international education circuits (Hickey, 2018), to marginalised migrants who seek to transform themselves into more desirable subjects (Feakins & Zemnukhova, 2018;Nugroho, Cho, & Collins, 2018) and institutions grappling with multiple possibilities for becoming global (Ortiga, 2018;Phan, 2018). These alternative or less recognised knowledge mobilities draw attention to the opening up of knowledge production, to the ways in which individuals and organisations might negotiate the manifestly uneven contours of social and economic development, migration regimes and normative policy settings.…”

Politics of the Russian Language Beyond Russia

“…It is a relatively developed country that also receives many labour migrants from Kyrgyzstan. People looking for work in Russia are, as a rule, qualified specialists (Feakins and Zemnukhova 2018). Kazakhstanis show a high interest in Russian education.…”