Why Tajiks Are (Not) Like Arabs: Central Asian Migration into Russia Against the Background of Maghreb Migration into France

Abstract

The article aims to compare the conditions of migrants from Central Asia into Russia with that of migrants from the Maghreb into France. Despite many similarities in conditions (related to the experience of social exclusion), there are deep differences. The precarious legal status of the majority of Central Asian newcomers in Russia has prevented them from embarking on an effective struggle for public recognition; this is in sharp contrast with North African newcomers in France who have been engaged in such struggle since the 1980s. In addition, Islam plays different roles in the migrants’ perceptions by host societies and in identification of the migrants themselves. Whereas Islam has become a marker of overarching collective identity among the Maghreb migrants’ descendants, this is not the case with Central Asians in Russia, for whom Islam remains part of their individual identity, rather than the basis of social consolidation and political mobilization.

Eurasian migration system: regional areas of functioning (on the example of the South Urals)

“…Историки важное место отводят реконструкции качественных и количественных параметров китайской миграции . Антропологи и социологи большое внимание уделяют среднеазиатской миграции, адаптации выходцев из этого региона в принимающем обществе, трудовой миграции и различным социальным практикам мигрантов Malakhov, 2019]. Вне сферы внимания исследователей остается локальное измерение этих процессов.…”

“As if I Were an Illegal”

“…In Russia, the world's fourth‐largest migrant‐receiving country, illegality functions in ways similar to American and European contexts, in that the terms illegal ( nelegal ) and guest worker ( gastarbaiter ) become proxies for blackness. Racialized as “black,” immigrants from Central Asia, as well as internal migrants from the North Caucasus, experience discrimination in applying for jobs, renting housing, attending schools, and accessing health care (Agadjanian, Menjívar, and Zotova 2017; Reeves 2013; Yusupova 2021; Abashin 2012; Round and Kuznetsova 2016; Malakhov 2019).…”

The Kyrgyz in the Southern Urals: Between Local Groups and the Host Community

“…Среднеазиатской миграции в Россию посвящен обширный корпус работ (Абашин 2015;Степанов 2019;Malakhov 2019). Память об «общем пространстве», сохраняющаяся еще с советского времени (в том числе об общем языковом пространстве), способствовала тому, что большинство киргизских мигрантов устремились из сельской местности (см.…”