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Paper short abstract

Based on ethnography with Russian migrant men in Uzbekistan, this paper explores how disrupted life projects and stalled mobility are reworked through cosmopolitan aspirations, understood as labour to sustain hope, direction, and imaginaries of a ‘good life’ under war-induced uncertainty.

Paper long abstract

Based on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork with Russian migrant men in Uzbekistan, this paper examines how young men grapple with disrupted life projects and uncertain futures in the context of war-induced mobility. Russia’s war in Ukraine set thousands of people on the move, interrupting family cycles, delaying social becoming, and placing long-term aspirations on hold. Many of my interlocutors found themselves stuck in unwanted destinations, navigating prolonged uncertainty about how to move forward with their lives. The paper analyses how men from different regions of Russia reframe experiences of uprootedness and stalled mobility as part of an ongoing effort to sustain a sense of direction and a viable future. Rather than accepting imposed identities of either ‘victims’ or ‘traitors’, they engage in narrative and practical work to reposition themselves as emergent, mobile, and morally accountable subjects. Aspirations toward cosmopolitan mobility, whether realised or imagined, become a key resource for reworking broken life trajectories and keeping hopes for a ‘good life’ alive under conditions of geopolitical constraint. The paper argues that cosmopolitan aspiration functions less as a marker of achieved privilege than as a form of labour through which young men cope with suspended futures, recalibrate expectations, and continue to imagine movement in an unequal and uncertain world.