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Paper long abstract:

What would it mean to explore migration as a form of ethical practice? This paper explores two forms of explicitly outward-oriented movement in contemporary Kyrgyzstan that are rarely held together in the same analytic frame: the practice of Muslim proselytising (dawat), which seeks to draw notional or non-practicing Muslims to a more explicit articulation of their faith; and the practice of 'going to town' (shaarga baruu): that is, making a living from seasonal, often undocumented, migrant labour in Russia. These two forms of movement appear outwardly very different: the first oriented towards spiritual and moral renewal; the second, to sustaining domestic livelihoods in a context limited options for rural employment. In both cases, however, success is premised upon the capacity to mobilise a variety of human and non-human powers as a way of taming future uncertainty and navigating between competing domestic obligations. More fundamentally, both are concerned with the realisation of a life that is 'good', in both moral and material terms. The paper draws on fieldwork with migrants and involuntary non-migrants in Batken, Kyrgyzstan and Moscow to explore how the conditions for future hope are sustained when a 'migratory disposition' is stymied by economic crisis and the widespread subjection to re-entry bans. In so doing it considers 'going out' as an analytic that can afford insight into the intersections of physical and existential (im)mobility in contexts of economic and political uncertainty.