This article examines how transnational labor migrants to Russia from the five former Soviet Union countries – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan – identify themselves in social media. The authors combine Rogers Brubaker’s theory of identifications with Randall Collins’ interaction ritual theory to study migrants’ online interactions in the largest Russian social media (VK.com). They observed online interactions in 23 groups. The article illuminates how normative and policy contexts affect the Russian Federation’s migration processes through a detailed discussion of migrants’ everyday online interactions. Results reveal common and country-specific identifications of migrants in their online interactions. Migrants from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan employ identifications connected to diasporic connections. Migrants from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in their identifications refer to low-skilled labor migration to Russia as a fact, a subject for assessment, and as a unifying category. For these countries, the present and the future of the nation is discussed in the framework of evaluation of mass immigration to Russia.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)323-349
Number of pages27
JournalChanging Societies and Personalities
Volume4
Issue number3
Early online date9 Oct 2020
DOIs
StatePublished - 9 Oct 2020

    Research areas

  • migration to Russia, transnational migrants, labor migrants, ethnic and national identifications, online interactions, social media, Social media, Transnational migrants, Interaction rituals, Migration to Russia, Labor migrants, Online interactions, Ethnic and national identifications

    Scopus subject areas

  • Social Sciences(all)
  • Cultural Studies
  • Social Psychology
  • Sociology and Political Science

ID: 69951680