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Why Tajiks Are (Not) Like Arabs: Central Asian Migration into Russia Against the Background of Maghreb Migration into France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2019

Vladimir Malakhov
Vladimir Malakhov*
Affiliation:
Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), Moscow, Russian Federation
*
*Corresponding author. Email: vmalachov@yandex.ru
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Abstract

The article aims to compare the conditions of migrants from Central Asia into Russia with that of migrants from the Maghreb into France. Despite many similarities in conditions (related to the experience of social exclusion), there are deep differences. The precarious legal status of the majority of Central Asian newcomers in Russia has prevented them from embarking on an effective struggle for public recognition; this is in sharp contrast with North African newcomers in France who have been engaged in such struggle since the 1980s. In addition, Islam plays different roles in the migrants’ perceptions by host societies and in identification of the migrants themselves. Whereas Islam has become a marker of overarching collective identity among the Maghreb migrants’ descendants, this is not the case with Central Asians in Russia, for whom Islam remains part of their individual identity, rather than the basis of social consolidation and political mobilization.

Keywords

immigration experienceMaghrebFranceCentral AsiaRussia
Type
Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , March 2019 , pp. 310 - 324
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2019 

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