Paper short abstract:

Based on in-depth interviews with over 300 migrants in Russia and members of their families left in rural areas in Central Asia and employ Mbembe's theory of mecropolitics paper paper theorises how migrants are positioned as superfluous, and how it impact on families.

Paper long abstract:

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has positioned itself as a modernising country (re)built on the profits of its energy boom and the efforts of, currently, over four million labour migrants, the majority from Central Asian rural areas. Far too many migrants endure an extremely precarious everyday as they are forced to live in what this article describes as a citywide state of exception, within which legal frameworks protecting migrants are ignored or misinterpreted to the benefit of the market. Many migrants who desire 'legality' are forced into 'illegality' by their employers and landlords refusing to register their documents correctly, increasing their vulnerability. Such conditions which are followed by unlimited working hours and poor leaving conditions often make impossible to bring children to Russia, and they have to stay with grandparents or with their mother. It creates massive psycological preasure along with disconnections within families. Central Asian woman are often considered by mass-media as medial tourists blaiming them for having babies in Russia. Such abuses are multiplied by the state construction of migrants as diseased and criminal, which in turn becomes embedded into cultural imaginations. Employing Mbembe's theory of necropolitics, this paper theorises how these constructions position migrants as superfluous and that they can be 'let to die', and how it impact on families. Paper is based on research which took place in 2012-2015 and involved in-depth interviews with over 300 migrants working in Russian cities, and interviews with members of families left in Kyrgizstan and Tajikistan.