Abstract:

This roundtable discussion will revolve around a new book on migration in Tajikistan by Elena Borisova, forthcoming with UCL Press (out in May 2024).

Paradoxes of Migration in Tajikistan is the first ethnographic monograph on migration in Tajikistan, one of the most remittance-dependent countries in the world. Moving beyond economistic push-pull narratives about post-Soviet migration, it foregrounds the experiences of those who ‘stay put’ in the sending society and struggle to reproduce their moral communities. Elena Borisova examines the role of mobility in historical and cultural ideas about the good life and how it becomes entwined with people’s efforts to become good, moral and modern subjects. Addressing the complex relationship between the economic, imaginative and moral aspects of (im)mobility, she shows that mass migration from Tajikistan is as much a project of navigating ethical personhood as it is a quest for economic resources.

This book is a beautifully crafted ethnographic account that reveals how transnational regimes and structures of mobility, citizenship and histories map out in the intimate spheres of the body, the person and the family. It is a major contribution to contemporary migration research, which is mostly centred on Europe and North America, and to the field of Central Asian studies. Highly readable, it will be of interest to researchers of migration, (im)mobility and citizenship, and to scholars of all disciplines working on Central Asia.