Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia: Socio-Legal Perspectives. By Agnieszka Kubal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. [Book review]

Bokrecension. Recenserat verk: Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia: Socio-Legal Perspectives / By Agnieszka Kubal. - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2019. xxii, 205 s.Kirja-arvostelu: Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia: Socio-Legal Perspectives / By Agnieszka Kubal. - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2019. xxii, 205 s.Book review. Reviewed work: Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia: Socio-Legal Perspectives / By Agnieszka Kubal. - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2019. xxii, 205 pp.Non peer reviewe

Migration and Hybrid Political Regimes

While migration has become a vital issue worldwide, mainstream literature on migrants’ legal adaptation and integration has focused on cases in Western-style democracies. We know relatively little about how migrants adapt in the ever-growing hybrid political regimes that are neither clearly democratic nor conventionally authoritarian. This book takes up the case of Russia—the third largest recipient of migrants worldwide—and investigates how Central Asian migrant workers produce new forms of informal governance and legal order. Migrants use the opportunities provided by a weak rule of law and a corrupt political system to navigate the repressive legal landscape and to negotiate, using informal channels, access to employment and other opportunities that are hard to obtain through the official legal framework of their host country. This lively ethnography presents new theoretical perspectives for studying legal incorporation of immigrants in similar political contexts. “Not only provides a brilliant analysis of the under-researched Russian case but also significantly adds to the existing knowledge of undocumentedness, informality, and migrant agency.” JOAQUÍN ARANGO, COMPLUTENSE UNIVERSITY OF MADRID “Rustamjon Urinboyev’s empathetic interviewing style allows him to illuminate complex social relationships, parallel legal orders, and behavioral norms. A remarkable book, rich in stories of extraordinary people, embedded in theoretical analysis.” JUDITH ALLOT, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, RESEARCH DIRECTOR OF GULAGECHOES “Ethnographically rich and theoretically ambitious, this book reveals the extralegal negotiations through which migrant workers, employers, middlemen, and streetlevel bureaucrats negotiate the Russian migration system. An original and important contribution.” MADELEINE REEVES, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTE

Corruption in a culture of money: Understanding social norms in post-Soviet Uzbekistan

The aim of this article is to explore the social meaning and ordinary activities surrounding informal transactions in order to better understand the social context forming the premises and informing the meaning of corruption in Uzbekistan. A theoretically founded hypothesis is that informal transactions in Uzbek society reflect different cultural meanings than in the Western world. If this is true, there may be reasons to re-evaluate the concept of corruption in order to reflect the morality of exchange in Uzbekistan. This article is based on two periods of field research between 2009-2010 in Oltiariq district of Fergana region, Uzbekistan. We used ethnographic methods and the case of wedding ceremonies in order to illustrate local perceptions of informal exchange. Our results can be summarised in three main points: (a) informal transactions are deeply embedded in cultural practices; (b) not all informal transactions are corrupt; (c) when talking about (or measuring) corruption, local perceptions should be taken into account

Precarious Times for Central Asian Migrants in Russia

Russia has become a magnet for migrant workers from other post-Soviet countries, especially Central Asians. Although Russian business elites generally welcome this cheap labor source, the government has deferred to, and at times encouraged, xenophobic popular sentiment. Steadily tightening immigration rules have forced many foreign workers into the informal economy, where they are vulnerable to exploitation. The pandemic and accompanying lockdowns have only added to their difficulties.Peer reviewe

The Political Economy of Non-Western Migration Regimes

This open access book contributes new theoretical and comparative insights on migrant agency, undocumentedness and informality in non-Western, non-democratic migration regimes. The book is conceived as a critical reflection on the contemporary migration regime scholarship, and, more generally, on comparative migration studies, which primarily focus on migrants’ experiences and immigration policies in the context of liberal democracies in North America and Western Europe. Addressing this gap is particularly important when considering the fact that many new migration hubs are nondemocratic, which in turn requires us to revise or produce new frameworks of analysis beyond existing and dominant Western-centric migration regime typologies. This book takes up the case study of Central Asian migrants in Russia and Turkey—two archetypal non-Western, nondemocratic regimes and key migration hotspots worldwide—and investigates how migration governance outcomes are shaped by the informal power geometries and extralegal processes in physical and digital landscapes in which migrant workers, employers, middlemen, landlords, street world actors and street-level bureaucrats negotiate the contemporary migration system. This lively ethnography presents new empirical material, a comparative perspective and methodological tools for studying migrants’ experiences and migration governance processes in non-Western migration regimes