Recollections of emerging hybrid ethnic identities in Soviet Central Asia: the case of Uzbekistan

This paper is a contribution to the debate about how people in Central Asia recall Soviet ethnic policies and their vision of how these policies have shaped the identities of their peers and contemporaries. In order to do so, this paper utilizes the outcomes of in-depth interviews about everyday Soviet life in Uzbekistan conducted with 75 senior citizens between 2006 and 2009. These narratives demonstrate that people do not explain Soviet ethnic policies simply through the “modernization” or “victimization” dichotomy but place their experiences in between these discourses. Their recollections also highlight the pragmatic flexibility of the public's adaptive strategies to Soviet ethnic policies. This paper also argues that Soviet ethnic policy produced complicated hybrid units of identities and multiple social strata. Among those who succeeded in adapting to the Soviet realities, a new group emerged, known as Russi assimilados (Russian-speaking Sovietophiles). However, in everyday life, relations between the assimilados and their “indigenous” or “nativist” countrymen are reported to have been complicated, with clear divisions between these two groups and separate social spaces of their own for each of these strata.     

EXIT,VOICE, AND DISAPPOINTMENT: MOUNTAIN DECLINE AND EU COMPENSATORY RURAL POLICY IN SPAIN

The article analyses the Spanish experience of EU compensatory rural policy in order to contribute to broader debates on the effectiveness of this kind of policy and the role of agriculture in the definition of European rural policies. In the case of Spain, compensatory allowances to mainly mountain farmers had little effect on economic trajectories or social cohesion because of the small sums involved, the exclusion of those with very small farms, and the decreasing role of agriculture in the rural economy. Other, more structural, instruments of rural policy focused on small‐scale promotion of business growth but were ill‐equipped to challenge some of the territorially defined items of living standard gaps. A historically grounded analysis suggests that the main changes in the social trajectory of Spain's mountain areas in the last decades have little to do with compensatory policy and are related to ordinary economic dynamics.     

The Place of Memory in Understanding Urban Change in Central Asia: The Cities of Bishkek and Ferghana

This article explores the relationship between memory and place in understandings of urban change in Central Asia. Drawing on narratives of long-term residents of two Central Asian cities we investigate the ways in which positive memories of the Soviet past emerge when people speak about the urban environment of today. We explore why such fondness for the Soviet past has emerged, what elements of the past are most cherished, and which urban communities remember these elements. We ask what these forms of memory reveal about what has been lost and what this tells us about the present anxieties of urban residents.     

Seasonal migration and symbolic power: the case of Muslim Meskhetians from Nasakirali

The repatriation and inclusion of Muslim Meskhetians, forcefully displaced by the Soviet government from Georgia to Central Asia during the 1940s, is still ongoing. In 1977, some Meskhetian families settled in the village of Nasakirali in western Georgia. The Soviet Georgian government built houses for the repatriates in a separate district, referred to as the “Island.” The location acquired a symbolic meaning for Meskhetians. After 40 years of repatriation, Meskhetians still remain “islanders:” isolated from the majority population, speaking a different language, practicing a different religion, and facing different employment opportunities. This study explores the coping mechanisms used by Muslim Meskhetians to sustain themselves and their families and improve their social conditions in a strictly Christian post-socialist country where “Islam is taken as a historical other.” The study primarily asks how employment/seasonal migration in Turkey changed the lives of Meskhetians by adapting their social, cultural, economic, and symbolic capital and became the only viable solution for overcoming social marginalization. The study explores how informality allows social mobility, changes gender attitudes, and helps “islanders” reach the “mainland” by becoming “Halal” – truthful and reliable. The study applies Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of “capital” and “symbolic power” for understanding Meskhetians’ informal economic practices.     

The divergence of private from social costs in rural‐urban migration: A case study of Nairobi,Kenya

In LDCs the level of urban wages tends to induce more people to seek employment in the towns than can be employed at this wage level. The existence of these urban unemployed causes the private costs of migration to diverge from the social costs. The individual rural resident decides to remain or migrate on the basis of perceived private costs of migration. The effect of a decision to migrate on the economy is the social cost of migration. In our study we consider the determinants of different levels of private and social costs associated with different stocks of urban unemployed. In addition, utilising survey data on Nairobi, Kenya, an attempt is made to quantify the major private and social costs of migration to determine whether they diverge significantly. On the basis of these estimates some policy options for limiting urban unemployment caused by urban in‐migration are considered.     

Urbanization,rural land system and social security for migrants in China

Temporary migration due to lack of social security for migrants, rural land tenure insecurity due to frequent land reallocation and abusive land requisition due to lack of functioning land markets are all major policy challenges that China is facing in its yet-to-be finished economic transition. Although there have been intensive studies and various policy recommendations on these issues, most discussions have so far neglected the close interrelationships between these issues and have failed to analyse them in an integrated framework. The paper aims to establish such an analytical framework. By taking into account the impacts of China's characteristics, that is a large developing country in transition, on the country's migration and rural land policies, we propose a policy package to address these challenges in a holistic manner.     

Globalising cities at the crossroads of migration: Puebla,Tijuana and Monterrey

This article is part of a larger project that focuses in part on the migration dynamics in large Mexican metropolitan areas or globalising cities. In particular, it develops a comparative analysis of the urbanised region of Puebla-Tlaxcala, the metropolis of Monterrey and Tijuana. All three metropolitan areas are important industrial centres that attract rural–urban as well as interstate migrations. Moreover, these urban centres are situated at routes used by migrants from Central and South America to get to the US. Yet, despite the increasing impact of migration(s) on urban areas, very little is known about its characteristics and municipal authorities have not identified inward or transmigration as issues of political importance. For our analysis we intend to map the different migrations through addressing the following question: How are migrations transforming the urban areas of Monterrey, Tijuana and Puebla-Tlaxcala and how are they inserted in and contributing to urban assemblages in these metropolitan zones? For this particular article we have chosen three distinct migratory groups to contrast: Germans in Puebla-Tlaxcala, Haitians in Tijuana and Indigenous populations in Monterrey.     

The making of Amerexico: (mis)handling illegal immigration

The border and social policies that the United States shares with Mexico have had only a modest impact on the level of illegal immigration. Alternative methods could reduce the social backlash against Mexican immigrants in US states of destination. Federal Relief Aid to states affected by new arrivals would ameliorate hostility. Although economic stagnation may depress the flow of immigrants or job opportunities, legal or illegal, economic recovery is dependent on the hard work of immigrants. The political solution has been to tighten border controls. Other options are possible. There should be pressure placed on multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to incorporate immigration issues in economic policy decisions. Many market reforms have contributed to greater emigration. The US has the option to use both supply and demand side options. Enforcement of workplace rules on minimum wages and health and safety standards would make it more difficult to exploit immigrant workers and would decrease the incentive to hire illegal workers. In a deregulated market stricter work standards were considered difficult to attain. A 1993 opinion poll revealed that 65% thought immigration was not beneficial. Border apprehension rates have increased dramatically over the past 30 years. The most recent policies aim to encourage the mobility of capital and trade through the NAFTA free trade agreement while trying to discourage human resource mobility. The push factors in Mexico are identified as high levels of poverty and unemployment, overpopulation, and economic stagnation. NAFTA and prior economic development efforts have not addressed the push factors. Disruption of traditional ways and changes toward greater industrialization spur emigration. The US program to develop border export industry encouraged migration from the interior of Mexico to border areas. Recent Mexican policies have changed the incentives for small farmers to stay on their lands, and Mexican urban areas are overpopulated. Experience has taught that migration flows are easier to start than stop.     

Regional Disparities in Central and Eastern European Countries: Trends,Drivers and Prospects

Growth in Central and East European countries (CEE) is territorially unbalanced, more so than in most other parts of the EU. The benefits of transformation in these countries have been unequally distributed among particular social groups and territories—with the emergence of highly educated and internationally successful professionals and entrepreneurs located mainly in metropolitan areas on the one hand, and structural unemployment, persistent poverty and social exclusion in peripheral regions on the other. These regional imbalances are characterised by a process of metropolisation that has privileged a handful of dynamic urban centres while exacerbating the structural problems of old industrial regions, vast rural areas and regions located on borders, and especially the EU's eastern borders. Different as they are in social, cultural and geographical terms, these declining or stagnating regions share general problems of economic peripherality and many negative effects of structural change, such as rural depopulation, ‘brain drain’, disinvestment and, frequently, below-average levels of socio-economic well-being. This polarised economic and territorial development within CEE poses challenges not only for the respective countries, but also for European cohesion.     

Coordination Risk and Cost Impacts on Economic Development in Poor Rural Areas

This paper addresses issues relevant to a critical problem in economic development: how to get rapid pro-poor economic growth in poor rural areas in Africa and South Asia where most of the world's dollar a day poor live. It examines constraints to the development of coordinated exchange systems in poor rural areas, focusing on the core problem of thin markets and low density of economic activity in these areas. Transaction cost and risk analysis is integrated into a conventional neoclassical production economics framework to describe the existence of low level equilibrium traps in transactions and supply chains and to generate important insights for development policy.     

The role of urban‐to‐rural remittances in rural development

One of the effects of rural‐to‐urban migration is the return of money and resources by the migrants to their respective home areas. Recently, it has been argued by several authors that such remittances represent a significant means for removing supply constraints to improved productivity in agriculture. In this paper the authors examine critically the available evidence on the rural impact of remittances. Subjects covered in the paper include the extent of the urban‐to‐rural remittances, the determinants of such financial flows and the use made in the rural areas of the money received. The paper concludes there is little evidence that urban‐rural remittances have been a significant means to rural economic development.     

Varieties of population mobility in relation to development in China

China, in its efforts to effect economic modernization, has come to recognize the need for labor mobility to promote the development of small towns, to develop frontier agriculture, and to provide a tertiary sector in the cities and towns. Of China's 1 billion people (3rd census, 1982), 206 million or 20% of the population lived in 236 cities and 2664 towns. 50% of the urban dwellers were concentrated in the 3 metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin. On the other hand 30% lived in the 2664 towns, which China wishes to develop. In the past large numbers of people have migrated to the large cities because there they were assured the life-long security of employment in state-owned industries -- the "iron rice bowl." However, China's present policy is to limit the size of big cities, develop medium-sized cities (between 200,000 and 500,000 people), and encourage the growth of small cities. China's 7th Five-Year Plan (1986-1990) calls for a massive movement of the agricultural labor force, not to the cities, but to the towns. To control population movement China instituted the Household Registration System in accordance with which a household must obtain permission to move permanently beyond the local area. Migration from the populous East Coast areas to the underdeveloped Northwest and to the rural impoverished areas of Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai is encouraged. But controlled migration has become more difficult since the decentralization which has accompanied the new economic policies, and the urban population has grown except for the 3 major cities. Moreover, as a result of the new "economic responsibility system" introduced in 1979, many surplus agricultural workers have been absorbed into nonagricultural activities in villages and townships. By the end of 1985, 67 million workers had moved from agriculture to industries, and peasants may now be granted temporary residence permits in towns. The total number of towns increased to 7280 by 1985; however, the new towns are concentrated in the more productive agricultural areas, which can support them. In addition to these more or less permanent migrants, large numbers of temporary migrants have come to the cities as representatives of local businesses, as construction workers, to operate urban outlets for agricultural and industrial products, to provide various services including domestic service, and as itinerant workers. 1986 statistics indicated that 3.21 million people were living as temporary residents of China's top 10 cities. The new economic policy has encouraged the resurgence of private plots and free markets and hence has stimulated the increased movement of peasants to rural markets and to free markets in cities.     

Fulani on the Move: Seasonal Economic Migration in the Sahel as a Social Process

Most research on short-term rural to urban migration and its impacts takes an economic approach and often emphasises negative aspects of migration, linking it synergistically with rural poverty in sending areas. Data from Fulani migrants in Northern Burkina Faso challenge this pessimistic view of short-term labour migration. Rather than a response to destitution, migration seems to be a useful way in which reasonably prosperous households can further enhance livelihood security. Moreover, factors not easily incorporated into a standard economic analysis, identity and village networks, emerge as being essential to the understanding of migration in this population. Finally, migration emerges as a highly dynamic process, which an ahistorical, static framework of analysis fails to capture.     

Dynamics of Islam,identity, and institutional rule in Uzbekistan: Constructing a paradigm for conflict resolution

The “re-Islamization” of society in independent Uzbekistan has proven to be a complex process, generating conflict in the social, cultural and political spheres. Since the early 1990s, the regime of Islam Karimov has sought to undermine any manifestation of “unofficial” Islam via imprisonment of the leadership, implementation of repressive statutes governing religious activity, and other coercive means. Yet, since 1999 Uzbekistan has experienced more religious violence directed against government power structures by “extremists” than any other former Soviet republic in Central Asia. Important issues that should direct U.S. policy remain unresolved: How significant is the threat from radical Islam in Uzbekistan, that is, what are the chances of politicized, “fundamentalist” Islam emerging as a mass movement there? Has recent U.S. policy reduced or exacerbated the dynamics of conflict between the regime and the “radicals?” In order to effect resolution of this conflict, a new paradigm must be implemented in U.S.–Uzbek relations which moves the Uzbek regime toward democratization, while maintaining social stability. In addition, politicized Islam, in a non-radicalized form, should also figure into any policy strategy directed at long-term stability in Uzbekistan.     

拜登政府执政后的重大国际问题笔谈

由于美国国内政治极化严重,恢复经济、控制疫情、弥合国内社会撕裂等成为拜登政府的当务之急。而且由于特朗普政府时期的一些对外政策具有一定的社会基础,美国两党在一些领域也有共识,所以在一些重大国际问题上,拜登政府的立场和政策将以延续为主、调整为辅。同时,鉴于拜登阵营的建制派背景,其在国际问题上将更注重以多边主义和国际合作的方式推进相关政策。具体而言,在亚太安全领域,拜登政府对特朗普政府政策的延续将大于变化;美欧关系将有所拉近;中美俄和美欧俄战略三角关系的调整将对美俄关系未来产生影响。拜登政府以重振美国国际领导权为重要目标,对多边主义国际秩序将产生较大影响。在全球卫生治理领域,拜登政府将努力消除特朗普政府时期外交政策的负面影响。在重返亚太区域经济一体化问题上,美国短期内不会有实质性行动。在科技产业领域,特朗普政府时期的政策基调将得到延续,中国需努力遏制双方关系恶化的势头,为自身发展营造稳定的外部环境。     

A note on modelling labour migration in LDCs

Taking the family as the rural‐to‐urban migration decision‐making unit, will the ‘expected‐income migration model’ accurately predict the level of migration? Consideration of two variables ‐ desire for leisure, and a version to risk ‐ serves to show that the expected‐income model yields a systematic downward bias in the predicted level of rural‐to‐urban migration. Likely policy implications emanating from the incorporation of these variables in the migration decision are indicated.     

Historiography and the politics of land,identity, and belonging in the twentieth-century North Caucasus

Intercommunal, socio-economic, and political relations in the North Caucasus have historically revolved around access to this mountain region’s prized pasturage and scarce farmland. Given the centrality of the land question in the North Caucasus, it is unsurprising that historiography on land relations in the region has been highly politicized. This article examines how indigenous writing on the history of land relations in the central Caucasus – a region inhabited by today’s Kabardians, Balkars, Ossetians, Ingushes, and Karachais, and dominated by the princely confederation of Kabarda before the tsarist conquest – has been subject to wide revision in response to changes in local and national political dynamics and the emergence of ethnicized identity politics. In the late-imperial and early Soviet periods, Karachai, Balkar, and Ossetian elites-cum-historians, writing for an audience of imperial policy-makers, crafted histories to influence state policies toward land reform. By the 1930s, historians from the region tailored their histories of land relations to the prerogatives of Soviet nationality policies. The ideas contained in these histories impacted the construction of national identities in the Soviet period. Post-Soviet Karachai and Balkar intellectuals, seeking to establish new post-colonial national histories for their peoples, have reinterpreted the history of land relations in order to depict their ancestors as independent of Kabarda’s land-based dominance. This revisionism is part of the struggle of the Karachais and Balkars against their historiographical erasure, which was a product of the exclusion of the Karachais and Balkars from the family of Soviet nations during their deportation and exile to Central Asia from 1944 to 1957 and their subsequent political and cultural marginalization.     

Gender differences in the incidence of rural to urban migration: Evidence from Kenya

This article examines gender differences in the incidence of rural to urban migration in developing countries, particularly those of Sub‐Saharan Africa. The study distinguishes itself from current migration literature by suggesting that the gain in returns to observable attributes, as a result of migration, may differ by gender and could provide an explanation for gender differences in migration. Using data from Kenya, we estimate the urban‐to‐rural wage gap, separately for each gender, and decompose the gap into the components due to urban to rural differences in observable attributes and differences in returns to observable attributes. We find that the portion of the wage gap that is due to the gain in returns to observable attributes is larger for males, suggesting that males receive larger monetary returns as a result of migration and, consequently, have greater incentive to migrate to urban areas.     

Exploring “North” and “South” in post-Soviet Bishkek: discourses and perceptions of rural-urban migration

In this paper we explore, through the narratives and perspectives of “old residents” in post-Soviet Bishkek, the dominant discourse which has emerged towards rural migrants arriving to the city from other areas of Kyrgyzstan from the late Soviet period onwards. We investigate the existence of a primarily “antagonistic” discourse in relation to the migrants and analyze this in detail to understand how it illuminates wider concerns amongst residents about what is occurring in their city, and about wider processes of social change in Kyrgyzstan. The paper provides a revealing insight into the processes of urban change in post-Soviet Central Asia, and demonstrates the ways in which confrontation with the everyday harsh realities of post-Soviet transformation can lead to the negative “othering” of one group of urban residents by another. We also demonstrate how the “old residents'” perceptions of migrants reveal important insights into emerging notions and constructions of identity in the post-Soviet period, related in this case to understandings of “North” and “South'1 The terms “North” and “South” are used here to denote the “North” and “South” of Kyrgyzstan. Talas, Naryn, Issyk-Kul' and Chuy regions (where the regional and national capital Bishkek is located) are usually taken as “North”, whereas Osh, Batken and Dzhalal-Abad regions are taken as “South.” View all notes and related concepts of what is “urban” and what is “Kyrgyz”.     

Wheels within Wheels: Poverty,Power and Patronage in the Cambodian Migration System

Abstract

This article presents evidence for an adjusted and refocused systems theory of labour migration in Cambodia. Specifically, it seeks to highlight first, how migration in Cambodia may be understood as a multi-scalar phenomenon characterised by pragmatism and flexibility; secondly, it emphasises the undergirding role of traditional rural norms in shaping and mediating the systematic process of labour movement; and finally, it presents evidence concerning how these structures constitute a vessel of social change, not only from urban to rural, but also from the rural to urban. In this way, a picture is presented of Cambodian migration as an adaptable, but nevertheless highly patterned process which is rapidly reordering the Kingdom’s cities and villages alike.