Paradoxes of Migration in Tajikistan: Locating the Good Life

The Moynihan Institute’s Center for European Studies welcomes author and social anthropologist Elena Borisova. 

This talk is based on Elena’s recent book researching what migration is and what it does in rural Tajikistan—one of the most remittance dependent countries in the world. Exploring this dependency, Elena moves beyond economistic push-pull narratives about post-Soviet migration and foreground the experiences of those who “stay put.” Addressing the complex relationship between the economic, imaginative and moral aspects of (im)mobility, Elena argues that mass migration from Tajikistan is as much a project of navigating ethical personhood as it is a quest for economic resources. Migration to Russia aims to fill the gap not only in family budgets, but also in people’s sense of self. In this talk, Elena will focus on how the departure of Soviet modernity followed by the normalization of mass migration of Tajikistanis to Russian cities has resulted in migration becoming intrinsic to the very project of becoming a “modern” person.