2.4.2 Migration Flows and Strategic Directions of Russia’s Migration Policy
Vladimir Malakhov
Project Leader
Project period
2020-2025
Context of Research Project within a Subject of Human Capital
In modern conditions, the importance of the phenomenon of human potential is extremely increasing, which determines the relevance of this project. Human capital represents a potential, a resource for the development of society, that is as important as the availability of minerals or high technologies. And since migration is one of the most important sources of accumulation of human capital, it is more than logical to turn to migration issues. In addition, the relevance of the topic is due to the inclusion of migration processes in the fabric of the modern world, as well as the significant impact of migration on all spheres of life of national states, from the economy to culture. The significance of this research area for Russia is connected with the need to change the optics: political elites and a significant part of the expert community in Russia consider migration as a problem (challenge), whereas its competitors in the West see migration as more of a resource. The pandemic that has engulfed the planet this year has pushed the migration issue into the background, if not completely removed it from the agenda. However, already in the early spring of 2020, a number of politicians and experts in industrialized countries raised the question of the need for exceptions in the regime of closing national borders, at least for seasonal workers.
Project Aim
Studying migration flows in order to build strategic guidelines for the migration policy of Russia.
Project Objectives:
- Conducting a comparative analysis of the dynamics of public and academic discourse in Western European and post-Soviet countries on the phenomenon of cultural heterogeneity caused by migration
2. Analyzing the development that ethno-cultural policy in post-Soviet countries has undergone over the three post-Soviet decades and ways to overcome social inequality caused by stigmatization based on ethnic origin
3. Analyzing state-confessional relations in the post-Soviet states and their impact on the integration of migrants in Russia
4. Analyzing the ways migrants develop urban infrastructure and distribute various types of capital within it: economic, social, cultural
5. Analyzing educational initiatives for migrant children implemented within the framework of public-private partnership
Key Findings
2020
The review of the most successful practices of public-private partnership in the adaptation of migrant children has been carried out. The dynamics of the development of ethno-cultural policy in several states of the post-Soviet space has been studied.
2021
The article analyzes the state-confessional relations in the post-Soviet states. The main discursive shifts in approaches to the management of cultural diversity in Western European countries that have taken place in the last three decades have been revealed. Studies have been conducted on the ways migrants develop urban infrastructure, as well as educational initiatives for migrant children.
2022
Methodological innovations in migration research as an interdisciplinary field of research have been analyzed. Theoretical advantages associated with the introduction of the concept of transnationalism into migration research have been shown (the possibility of overcoming the nation-centered or state-centered framework of research optics refocusing attention from social groups to social fields).
Social activity of migrant communities representatives in Russian cities have been analyzed: it has been revealed that the concept of ‘diaspora’ is used by agents of social action in two different meanings – as a formal organization claiming to represent a particular migrant community and as an ideal image of a national community, an ‘imaginary community’ of compatriots, and imaginary as highly integrated, not riddled with corruption and competition.
Publications
- Malakhov, V., Osipov, A. (2021). Dynamics of Ethnocultural Policy in Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine: Delayed 'Nationalization'? World of Russia, 30 (2): 26-47.
- Malakhov V., Letnyakov D. (2021) Religious Policy of Post-Soviet States: between the 'Path Dependency Effect' and 'Governmentality'. POLIS: Political Studies, No. 4: 163-175.
- Malakhov, V. (2021) Using Differences // Logos, 31 (5): 1-26.
Conferences
International Conference International Migration and Human Capital in the Context of COVID-19 RANEPA and RIAC (Moscow, Russia, December 18, 2020)
Regular seminar Identity Politics. Denis Letnyakov's report State and Religion in the Post-Soviet Space: Post-Soviet Secularism or post-Soviet Secularism? (Moscow, Russia, December 24, 2020)
Interdisciplinary Public Seminar Foreigners in the City: Urban Marginality and Migration: Postcolonial and Post-Soviet Perspectives (with Echelle Inconnue group, Rouen) (Moscow, Russia, February 26, 2021)
Regular seminar Identity Politics. Report by Madeleine Reeves (University of Manchester) Domesticated Militarism: Getting Used to the State Border in Rural Areas of Central Asia (Moscow, Russia, March 4, 2021)
International conference 'The Soviet Legacy' Thirty Years Later: Discourses and Practices, RANEPA, MVSSEN, European University in St. Petersburg and New Literary Review (Moscow, Russia, April 23-24, 2021)
Regular seminar Identity Politics. Alexey Mikhalev's report From the ‘Right of the Nation’ to the ‘Right of the Tribe’ or the Transformation of Post-Soviet Legitimacy in the National Republics of the Russian Far East (Moscow, Russia, May 20, 2021)
Special seminar HCMRC-HSE-RANEPA Integration: State Strategies and Migrant Trajectories (Moscow, Russia, November 29, 2021)
International conference Human Mobility in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic, RANEPA and RIAC (Moscow, Russia, December 17, 2021)
Regular seminar Identity Politics. Viktor Dyatlov’s report Chinese Pogrom. Blagoveshchenskaya 'Utopia' of 1900 in the Assessment of Contemporaries and Descendants (Moscow, Russia, April 28, 2022)