Abstract:

While migration from Kyrgyzstan remains overall stable, an increasing number of young Kyrgyz are starting to prioritize new destinations instead of Russia. This trend, that can be observed also in other Central Asian countries, amounts to an increasing trend of diversification of destinations, fostering new outmigration to Asian countries and, more recently, Europe. While in the case of Russia mobility from Central Asia was often enabled by migration networks, in the case of mobility to non-CIS countries migration networks are gradually being replaced by public and private employment agencies.

This paper looks at the role of migration intermediaries in shaping new infrastructures of migration (Lindquist 2012). While the forms of organizing labor migration are changing when compared to already existing infrastructures that lead to Russia, I ask whether new outmigration to different destinations presents the characteristics of a new specific model of work for brokers, or whether Kyrgyzstan is adopting models already in place in other contexts, as the example of Southeast Asia. This article, based on a quantitative survey of 421 migrants and 9 in-depth interviews, considers the role of formal and informal brokers in this new migration regime in the context of the approaches of the Kyrgyz government to their regulation. As the process of structuring new migration infrastructures is shaped by the political, social, and economic context of the country, I look at the interplay between formal and informal actors in shaping new infrastructures of migration.

I find that the characteristics of migration infrastructures in Russia allow migrants to embark in mobility and start working without any knowledge at all about migration and registration rules. On the contrary, in the case of mobility to other destinations, this knowledge is delegated to brokers. While there are also brokers who send migrants to Russia and Kazakhstan, they are usually local, more informal and are usually perceived like unscrupulous agents compared to brokers in Europe. In noting that migrants’ experiences of migration to Russia differs from that of migration to non-CIS countries, this paper contributes to the emerging literature about diversification of migration destinations from Central Asia.