?Caucasian? female labor migration in contemporary Russia ...

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1998). However it seems to be not such a crucial thing for hiring a domestic worker, because, as some scholar claim about it, employers who hire domestic workers have to conceive them “as different from themselves, yet not too different and alienating in an intimate family context (Moors 2003:390). It seems to be exactly the case for Armenians hiring Armenians, while Russians feel Caucasians too much “alien and different” to let them enter their privacy. • Further, Armenian culture seems to have even stronger accent on “warm family ties” and “maternal love for children” when compared to Russian. So local patterns of child care reproduced by Russian elder generation (especially – in megapolices like Moscow or St.- Petersburg) might seem to be examples of cruelty and abandonment towards children – form the point of view of Armenian traditions. Therefore local Russian females are not competitors for potential female Armenian child care providers – at least, not in the eyes of the parents that still share Armenian traditions of child care. • Economic factors matter here as well. Recent migrants are in very poor economic situation and are poorly paid at any economic niche where they are employed. Moreover, conditions in this sector are much batter in comparison to retail trade at open air markets where female migrants are usually employed. Therefore they are ready to work for low wages as domestic or child care workers, and in this sense they compete in the niche with Russian babushkas. • Regarding morality, the situation when recent Armenian migrants are employed by local Armenians from Diaspora could be attributed to the ethnic solidarity and therefore is estimated as morally positive. The notions of exploitation and slavery seem to be not mentioned even in case of unpaid child care or domestic work. Because even in this case employers provide to the friends or relatives who stay at their homes as lives-in shelter, food and chance to stay in Russia in much better living conditions than they would have at home in Armenia (where people often live without electricity, water, gas and heating). Moreover, waged labor principles confront here with the strong family ties, family values and “labor for love” principles. Such complications make this situation even more interesting for a social scientist. Therefore it seems that the patterns of employment of the female migrants into Russia will be changing. There are conditions that could stimulate the process of involving female migrants into the sector of waged domestic and child care work in Russia. There are already signs of these changes and I believe this process deserves sociological investigations. Literature: Björnberg, U. (2002, a) "Ideology and choice between work and care: Swedish family policy for working parents", Critical Social Policy Vol. 22, No. 1. Björnberg, U. (2002, b). "Working and caring for children: family policies and balancing work and family in Sweden" in Carling, Alan, Duncan, S. and Edwards R. (eds.) Analyzing Families: Morality and rationality in policy and practice. London and New York: Routledge. Boyd, M.1992 "Gender Issues in Immigration and Language Fluency". In: Immigration, Language and Ethnicity. Ed. B. Chiswick. Washington D.C.: AEI Press. Brednikova O. (2003) The Female Labor Migration: A Shift in Gender Contracts? (Original in Russian: Женская трудовая миграция: смена гендерных контрактов? // Гендерные отношения в современной России: исследования 1990-х годов. Издательство Самарский университет. 2003). Brednkiova O., Pachenkov O. (2002) Migrants-"Caucasians" in St. Petersburg: life in tension. Anthropology & archeology of Eurasia [Armonk] Vol. 41. No. 2. Fall 2002. p. 43-89 Brednkiova O., Pachenkov O. (1999) Economic Migrants from Azerbaidjan in St.Petersburg (in co-authorship with O.Brednikova) // 'Caucasian Regional Studies' Vol. 4, Number 3, 1999. 8
Brednikova O., Chikadze E. (1998). Armenians of St.-Petersburg: careers of ethnicity. (Original in Russian: Ольга Бредникова, Елена Чикадзе. Армяне Санкт-Петербурга: карьеры этничности. Конструирование этничности. Этнические общины Санкт-Петербурга. Под ред. В.Воронкова, И.Освальд. СПб: «Дмитрий Буланин»: 227-259) Chikadze (2000) Armenians of St.-Petersburg – from a social movement to community institutions (Original in Russian: Елена Чикадзе. Армяне Петербурга – о общественного движения к общинным институтам. / Диаспоры, 2000, №1-2, М: 196-214) Damberg, Chikadze (2000) Armenians in a shoe business in St.-Petersburg. In: )// Ethnicity and Economy: collection of articles based on the materials of international workshop. / Ed. by O.Brednikova, V.Voronkov., E.Chikadze. Centre for independent social research. Works. Vol. 8. St.Petersburg. Pp: 113-117 Carling, J. (2005). Gender dimensions of international migration /GLOBAL MIGRATION PERSPECTIVES, No. 35 May 2005, Global commission for international migration, International Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Global Commission on International Migration, Geneva, Switzerland Castles, S. and Miller M. (1993) The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World. New York: Guilford Press. Folbre N. (1986) "Cleaning House: New Perspectives on Households and Development," Journal of Development Economics, 22:5-40. Gavanas, A., Tobio, C. , Williams, F. (2007). “Gendered Citizenship: ‘Global Care Chains’ and Migrant Domestic Work in the UK, Spain and Sweden,” Chapter in “Gendering Citizenship in Western Europe: new challenges for citizenship research in a cross-national context,” edited by Ruth Lister. Policy Press (in print). Guerassimova K., Pachenkov O. (2005) Needs assessment of asylum-seeker children in St.-Petersburg. Hans E Andersson, Henry Ascher, Ulla Björnberg, Marita Eastmond and Lotta Mellander (Eds.). Asylum seeking child in Europe. Centre for European Research at Göteborg University (CERGU). Gothenborg, Sweden. 2005 Pp: 183-196 Hochschild, Arlie R. 2002. "Love and Gold" in Ehrenreich, Barbara and Hochschild, Arlie (eds) Global woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy. New York: Metropolitan Books. Light I., Bhachu P., and Karageorgis S., (1990) "Migration Networks and Immigrant Entrepreneurship" (December 31, 1989). Institute for Social Science Research. Volume V. 1989- 90 - California Immigrants in World Perspective: The Conference Papers, April 1990. Paper 1. http://repositories.cdlib.org/issr/volume5/1 Light I., Karageorgis S. (1994) The Ethnic Economy. // The handbook of Economic Sociology. Ed. by N. Smelser and R. Swedberg. Princeton University Press. Moors A. (2003). “Migrant Domestic Workers: Debating Transnationalism, Identity Politics, and Family Relations. A Review Essay.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 45, No. 2, p. 386-395. Osipov A. (2007) Falling between the cracks: legal status of the Meskhetian Turks in the Russian Federation. In: Meskhetian Turks in the intersection: integration, resettlement or repatriation, ECMI (in print). Ossipow A. (2003) Pruefung der Identitat - Ethnische Intoleranz und Diskriminierung in Russland // Russland auf dem Weg zum Rechtsstaat? / Berlin: Deutsches Institut fur Menschenrechte, 2003. S. 72-78. Özyegin G. (2002) “The Doorkeeper, the Maid and the Tenant: Troubling Encounters in the Turkish Urban Landscape.” In: Kandiyoti Deniz and Saktanber, Ayse (eds). Fragments of Culture. The Everyday of Modern Turkey. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press Pachenkov O. (2004) The life of ethnic migrants: primary groups vs. imagined communities (based on case-study research of Caucasian migrants in St.-Petersburg, Russia). In: 9
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