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Molchanova Yu. Highly Educated Young Tajik Migrants in Moscow: Strategies of Self-Identification and Ethnic Boundaries

Yulia Molchanova
N. N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Moscow, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0003-3700-4737
E-mail: Volim9102@gmail.com

 

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ABSTRACT. This article analyzes the ethnic boundaries of young, highly educated Tajik migrants in Moscow using qualitative research methods. The study was conducted in the capital city in 2021–2022. In the course of the research we used the Twenty Statements Test (TST) by Kuhn and McPartland (“Who am I?”), the test on the types of ethnic identity by G. U. Soldatova and S. V. Ryzhova to identify the type of ethnic identity of informants, as well as in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Interviews with each of the informants lasted at least 3 hours. In this study, we primarily relied on qualitative methods, as it was important for us how our informants (n = 6) characterize and describe themselves, how they describe their ethnicity, its boundaries, and how they perceive it. What the informants had in common was that they were all first-generation migrants, they had graduated from schools in Tajikistan (n = 5) or Uzbekistan (n = 1), but had received higher education in Russia, one of them had additionally studied in Germany. The aim of this article is to identify the self-identification and ethnic border construction strategies of young Tajik migrants in Moscow with higher education and high competences. To do this, we looked at the problems of stereotyping, racialization, and ethnicization that our informants encountered and how they perceived their placement into particular ethnic and racial categories. We also examined the narratives and practices through which ethnic boundaries are constructed in the host society.

 

KEYWORDS: ethnicity, Tajik migrants, Moscow migrants, ethnic borders, ethnic identity

 

FOR CITATION: Molchanova Yu. Highly Educated Young Tajik Migrants in Moscow: Strategies of Self-Identification and Ethnic Boundaries. Kunstkamera. 2023. 2(20): 131–143. (In Russian). doi 10.31250/2618-8619-2023-2(20)-131-143  

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8619-2023-2(20)-131-143
УДК 316.7

 

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