Description
Book SynopsisDrawing on ethnographic research conducted at Moscow’s wholesale markets from 2013 to 2016,
Vietnamese Migrants in Russia: Mobility in Times of Uncertainty provides original insights into how uncertainty shapes social practice, identity and belonging in the context of irregular migration from Vietnam to Russia. The study speaks to various debates in migration and mobility studies -- particularly those focused on brokerage networks, the political economy of sexuality, and social belonging -- deepening our knowledge of how the core social values and cultural logics that underpin Vietnamese personhood are challenged and reconstituted by the ethos of the market economy. This book sheds important light on processes of mobility and social change in post-socialist societies that continue to grapple with yawning chasms between old and new ways of life, the local and the global, policy and practice, and obsolete governance techniques and rapidly changing socio-economic realities.
Trade Review"The book has two major strengths. First, Hoang’s access and immersion into the daily lives of discrete (and often, irregular) migrants involved in Russia’s black economy. Then, her ability to convey their varied and changing experiences through an embodied approach. [...] This type of ethnographic exploration is indispensable."
- Valentine Gavard-Suaire,
Asian Journal of Social Science, 49 (2021)
"English-language sources on Vietnamese in Russia remain limited, and Hoang’s book makes an important contribution to this interesting phenomenon. The book would be most beneficial to migration studies scholars and those concerned with Russia and Vietnam in particular. However, the book also does an absolutely excellent job of offering examples of good ethnographic writing, something that many ethnographies today fall short of. Graduate and undergraduate ethnography classes would benefit considerably from the book’s ethnographic content. Hoang is also featured on the University of Melbourne’s Ear to Asia podcast discussing this research, which is a nice supplement to the book itself."
- Paul Capobianco,
Asian Ethnology, 80, 1 (2021)
"This is an exceptionally fascinating commentary on how the uncertainty of the Moscow environment has created possibilities as well as difficulties for Vietnamese migrants. Compellingly argued, with rich ethnographic data, this is a wonderful addition to the literature on migration."
- Mandy Thomas, Executive Dean, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology
"Deeply compelling and irresistibly important, Lan Anh Hoang has provided an extraordinary analysis on a much-overlooked migrant community in Russia’s changing socioeconomic and racial landscape ... a significant achievement."
- Hung Cam Thai, Professor of Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center
"This book offers a conceptually sophisticated yet fine-grained analysis of how Vietnamese migrants improvise in mastering the art of contingent living in Russia’s shadow economy. It is an important reading for all those interested in migration and mobility."
- Brenda Yeoh, Professor of Geography, National University of Singapore
Table of ContentsChapter I Introduction
The Market
Vietnamese migration to Russia
Mobility in times of uncertainty
Uncertain time, uncertain life
Uncertainty: conceptual debates
Productive and destructive uncertainty
Structure of the book
Chapter II Russia's post-Soviet migration regime
Migration to Russia
The Russian immigration regime
The securitization of migration
Russian migrantophobia
Chapter III Navigating Russia's shadow economy
Legality for sale
CH? Chim - Sadovod market
The migration industry
The Go-betweener
Chapter IV Market ethos and the volatile radius of trust
Uncertainty and market moralities
One for oneself
Money matters
Chapter V Love and sex in times of uncertainty
Provisional intimacies
'Better safe than sorry'
What's love got to do with it? Narratives of sex, money and morality
Chapter VI Transient existence and the quest for certainty
I'm here to make money, not to live
Consumption as belonging
Renegotiating the 'Con buôn' identity
Conclusion
Appendix
Methodology
References
Index
