‘Only by learning how to live together differently can we live together at all’: readability and legibility of Central Asian migrants’ presence in urban Russia

Nasritdinov, Emil

doi:10.1080/02634937.2016.1153837

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…While there is a wide body of work examining the experiences of Central Asian migrants in Russia (see, for example, Abashin, 2014a;Nasritdinov, 2016;Reeves, 2013), this paper uses post-colonial, racism and discrimination lenses to address it. This approach, it is argued, is important as it enables the migrant everyday to be detailed within the context of government (in)action and disgust (see also Round and Kuznetsova, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Postcolonial migrations in Russia: the racism, informality and discrimination nexus

Kuznetsova

Round

2019

IJSSP

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the challenges of bringing postcolonial, racism and migration research into a meaningful dialogue. Based on the research examining migration from Central Asia into Russia, the paper analyses migration policy and the everyday experiences of migrants. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on mixed methodologies, including narrative, semi-structured and in-depth interviews with migrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in Russian cities and those who returned to their country of origin (over 300 people), interviews with representatives of NGOs, state officials and journalists in 2013–2016 and an analysis of the legislation and mass-media regarding migration from Central Asia. Findings The paper demonstrates that experiencing racism is a part of everyday life for migrants from Central Asia living in Russia. Whether this is in interactions with the state, fear of persecution on the street by the police or in the workplace, it is a constant factor. It argues that the political and everyday xenophobia and racism demonstrates deeply rooted imperial views in Russia’s inner politics and shapes attitudes toward migrants. Social implications The paper contributes to broader debates on the linkages between migration and racism in Europe, in particularly questioning the positionality of migrants from “not-European” countries. Originality/value Mbembe’s approach to “let die” is pertinent in understanding postcolonial migration. Racism continually plays a role in “normalization” of abuse toward migrants and restrictive migration policy. Blaming “the migrant” for acting informally, draining healthcare resources and for posing a security risk provides a much-needed scapegoat for the state.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Postcolonial migrations in Russia: the racism, informality and discrimination nexus

Kuznetsova

Round

2019

IJSSP

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“…In particular, this concerns the Turks in the Netherlands (Jamal et al, 2019), migrants in Portugal (Melkonian et al, 2019;Schachner et al, 2017), in Chile (Urzúa et al, 2017), Belgium, Finland, Italy, Denmark and Slovenia (Schachner et al, 2017). A vast number of recent studies also focus on migration to Russia (Ryabichenko & Lebedeva, 2016;Sardadvar & Vakulenko, 2020), including from countries of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (Gurieva et al, 2020;Nasritdinov, 2016;Nikiforova & Brednikova, 2018;Ryazantsev et al, 2017). Studies explore the reasons for migration (Sardadvar & Vakulenko, 2017) and its impact on different spheres, including social and economic development of countries (Ruchkin et al, 2019), in particular in the Republic of Bashkortostan (Khilazheva, 2019;Safiullin et al, 2017).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural and Language Effects of Migration: The Case of Migrants and Chuvash People in the Republic of Bashkortostan (Russia)

et al. 2021

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According to the World Migration Report there are 11.6 million migrants in Russian Federation, the majority of which (43%) have come from countries of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The study aims to evaluate the impact of migration on both migrant and host cultures to establish the changes in native languages and cultures of migrant ethnic groups in the Russian Federation under the influence of a single state language. For the study, the authors used statistical data of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, findings of the 1920-2010 censuses, and mathematical modeling of cultural changes based on differential equation. The case of Chuvash people living in the Republic of Bashkortostan was explored by the mathematical modeling method to identify the alien cultural influence on the recipient country, with a particular emphasis on changes in the local language. The direct correlation has been found between the extent to which the migrant community preserve their homeland traditions at a new place and the probability of shifts in the host country’s culture. The preservation of migrants’ native language in everyday living demonstrates a high probability of replacing the host language by the migrant one in their environment (the probability is 5-10% higher than the expected level for 7 districts and 11 to 50% - in 8 districts out of 26 studied). The results may have practical use in evaluating the probability of major cultural shifts across the world as the international mass migration increases in volume and scope.

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“…I use this term to capture the domain of social relations and obligations that is mediated through the dense trans-local networks that connect Moscow, as a place of physically demanding and 'hurried' work, with Batken district in southern Kyrgyzstan, 4,000 kilometres away. This is a social world that has taken shape since the early 2000s, as labour migration between rural Kyrgyzstan and Moscow has gone from being an exceptional destination of last resort to an essential and normalized element of household livelihood strategies (Nasritdinov 2016;Reeves 2012;Ruget and Usmanalieva 2008). The period of fieldwork in which I draw in this paper (nine months of ethnographic fieldwork in Batken and Moscow in 2009-2010 and several shorter return visits between 2012 and 2015) was characterized by increasingly stringent regulation of migrant quotas in the wake of the global financial crisis, the Russian oil crisis, as well as the imposition of sanctions that particularly affected Russia's construction sector.…”

Section: Making a Life In Migrant Moscowmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Queue

Reeves

2020

Suomen Antropologi

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The contemporary Russian migration regime is grounded in an artificial shortage of legal labour. For migrant workers from ‘visa-free’ states of the former Soviet Union, becoming and remaining documented requires mastering the queue as a distinct social and institutional form. Exploring the everyday tactics of ‘occupying the queue’ among migrant workers from Kyrgyzstan, this paper brings an existentially sensitive perspective on migration into conversation with an anthropology of legal time, attentive to the ways in which being ‘stuck in motion’ emerges through the conjunction of competing tempi of work, life, and legalisation. A focus on the queue as social form draws attention to the embodied labour of synchronisation: the physical and social effort entailed in integrating the disjunctive temporal regimes of paid work and documentary verification in contexs of legal precarity. In so doing, the article critically interrogates assumptions of ‘empty time’ in recent anthropological work on waiting.

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‘Only by learning how to live together differently can we live together at all’: readability and legibility of Central Asian migrants’ presence in urban Russia

Cited by 9 publications

References 4 publications

Postcolonial migrations in Russia: the racism, informality and discrimination nexus

Postcolonial migrations in Russia: the racism, informality and discrimination nexus

Cultural and Language Effects of Migration: The Case of Migrants and Chuvash People in the Republic of Bashkortostan (Russia)

The Queue

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