Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the effects of the deportability on the everyday lives of Vietnamese migrants who works in the two markets in Moscow, Russia, Moscow Trading Center (ТЯК Москва) and Sadovod Trade Center (ТК Садовод)

Paper long abstract:

Prior to the collapse of the USSR, thousands of Vietnamese migrants arrived through various programs that show cooperation and socialist solidarity. Following the collapse of the USSR, many of these former contract workers and international students have stayed and engaged in wholesaling and retailing businesses all over Russia. While many of these migrants were able to legalise their migration status to stay in Russia, many others remained as migrants with gray or illegal status. Despite a number of large arrests as well as tales of police brutality, Russia is still considered a favoured destination for Vietnamese labour migrants due the socialist connection and the presence of a large existing migrant community. In the large markets in Moscow, the presence of a diverse group of people has created tensions between the locals in the areas surrounding the markets and the migrants who works in these markets. Furthermore, the constant street checks, arrests, fines and/or brutality on migrants in the area surrounding these market, deportability and hostility have created a constant fear of authority in the Vietnamese community in Russia. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Moscow, This paper addresses the effects of the deportability on the everyday lives of Vietnamese migrants who work in the two markets in Moscow, Russia, Moscow Trading Center (ТЯК Москва) and Sadovod Trade Center (ТК Садовод)

Paper short abstract:

The presentation will deal with the strategies that "ethnic" Georgian restaurants in Saint-Petersburg and labor migrants from Georgia who are employed by them use to adapt to deportability and with the regimes of migrants' social in/exclusion.

Paper long abstract:

In legal terms labor migration from Georgia to Russia represents a special case among post-Soviet republics. In contrast to the CIS citizens who make the majority of labor migrants to Russia Georgian migrants need employment-based immigrant visas which until recently were actually almost impossible to obtain.

Despite the mass deportation of Georgian citizens from Russia in 2006 and Russo-Georgian war in 2008 the extant social ties, certain competency in Russian and perceived cultural closeness still makes Russia an attractive destination for Georgian labor migrants.

The love for Georgian cuisine in Russia dates back to the Soviet era and has been recently reinforced by tourist re-exploration of Georgia by Russian holidaymakers, which resulted in fast multiplication of Georgian "ethnic" cafes and restaurants in Russian cities.

The lack of locally based professionals caused both the small employers and the owners of network restaurants to import labor from Georgia. These invited employees cross Russian border and stay illegally. Since public catering is highly regulated and inspected sphere in Russia the functioning of Georgian restaurant business is challenging.

Russia's counterterrorist and migration control efforts result in routine street checks by the police, and it is mostly "southerners" who become subject to them. For this reason in public space Georgian labor migrants are constantly under the threat of deportation.

The presentation will deal with the strategies that Georgian restaurants in Saint-Petersburg and labor migrants from Georgia who are employed by them use to adapt to deportability and with the regimes of migrants' social in/exclusion.

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Paper short abstract:

Building on 'digital anthropology', this paper discusses how online privacy practices of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK from Syria and Iran reflect physical and social concerns that they may - at some point - be forced to return 'home'.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses how online privacy practices change as asylum seekers and refugees adjust to life in the UK under threat of - at some point - of being deported. It is drawn from ethnographic research with NGOs, asylum seekers and refugees (from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries) living in the East Midlands (UK), and builds on the interests of Daniel Miller and colleagues' 'digital anthropology'. While some asylum seekers stay in the limbo of a labyrinthine asylum system partially out of a perceived lack of other options, others attain asylum. All live with the knowledge that they may at some point be deported to their home countries. They negotiate online self-expression with this fear in mind. The refugees and asylum seekers with whom this research was conducted post carefully and infrequently on public-facing social media like Facebook, where activity's value is often outweighed by social and physical risks that are difficult to mitigate solely with the technical security concerns that dominate many discussions of 'online privacy'. Online visibility (particularly related to sensitive topics like politics, sexuality and religion) may jeopardize relationships with and safety of family back home, yet may also produce evidence for asylum claims demonstrating a danger of persecution. At the same time, being abroad provides individuals with some protective distance from these concerns' effects in their home countries. As time goes on, and the threat of forced return feels less immediate, many become more comfortable with identifying as 'themselves' on 'public' social media.

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Paper short abstract:

Children of non-Jewish deportable migrants in Israel straddle between the risk of deportation by the state and the promise of "adoption" by the nation. The family - as biological kinship or metaphor for the nation - becomes a key notion in evaluating the belongingness of illegalized migrants.

Paper long abstract:

Since the 1990s non-Jewish migrants from Latin America reached Israel in search of work and subsequently began settling down. Founded as a Jewish state, Israel operates with an ethno-religious criterion for defining legal and cultural belongingness. Basically, while Jews are welcome to migrate to Israel and become instantly citizens, non-Jews are categorically rejected as potential members in the state. The only way for non-Jews to be included is by having a Jewish spouse and "marrying into" the nation. Most settled Latinos in Israel either formed or brought over their non-Jewish families. When Israel implemented massive deportation campaigns, Latino children assumed a particular role. First, they served, inadvertently, as "deportation shields" as state authorities mostly refrained from arresting parents (especially mothers) with children. Second, when pressure amounted on the Israeli state to recognize the status of settled non-Jewish migrants, a special government decision regularized children who were considered "culturally assimilated" to the nation. Many Latino children who spoke fluent Hebrew and went to Israeli schools were rewarded a legal status and by extension their families as well. The paper interrogates the way an apparent hermetic nationalistic definition of belongingness to the nation as a (Jewish) family becomes feeble when de facto integration is proven possible and even easy for non-Jewish families.

Paper short abstract:

The UK's hostile environment toward immigrants is having particularly distressing impacts on the Jamaican diaspora. This paper focuses on how deportability is embodied by Jamaican men in London and the spiritual coping strategies they developed as a response.

Paper long abstract:

The UK's hostile environment toward immigrants is having particularly distressing impacts on the Jamaican diaspora, including individuals with criminal records, those who have overstayed visas and those who are entitled to permanent settlement (or even citizenship) but have lost the documentation to very this. Deportability leads to the risk of developing mental and physical heath issues due to increased stress and anxiety. This paper focuses on how deportability is embodied in the Jamaican diaspora and the spiritual coping strategies that are developed as a response. It draws on fieldwork in London, including interviews with 10 Jamaican men who were appealing or had successfully appealed deportation orders.

For Jamaican men in London, successfully appealing a deportation order requires financial resources to cover legal fees and the ability to withstand long periods of unemployment. Men expressed anxieties about their children suffering from hunger, and described their own experiences of depression and isolation. However, avoiding displays of suffering (which requires vigilant attention to appearance and manners) was an important part of building the social and financial capital required to survive deportability. Jamaican men found the discipline required to survive through spirituality and engaged in a variety of bodily rituals to generate positive energies, which helped them remain calm and healthy. However, it was less clear whether spiritual coping strategies were being passed on to their children. This case suggests that while some coping strategies can ease the burdens of deportability for migrants themselves, those burdens may still be passed on to their families.

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Paper short abstract:

Foster families for unaccompanied minor refugees are situated in an area of conflict between state welfare and European border regime. With the threat of deportation, the entire family system is in danger, so foster parents develop their own strategies and practices in dealing with this situation.

Paper long abstract:

In 2015 & 16 about 60,000 unaccompanied minor refugees (UAM) arrived in Germany. The German youth welfare system was in no way prepared for this. A way out of the overcrowding of the youth welfare facilities seemed to be the targeted promotion of foster care for the young refugees. In 2015 many youth welfare offices registered a rush of interest and there were numerous placements. These foster families, most of which are termed "guest families", represent overlapping transnational family settings with the relations of the adolescents with their families of origin and the transnational and transcultural networks created by the host family. On the basis of interviews with "guest families", it will be demonstrated, how the families found themselves (mostly unexpected) in specific tensions between state welfare and European border regime. These tensions not only relate to the policies of care and deterrence, which are mostly complementary in their orientation, but are also recognizable in very different economies, practices, and goals of care between state actors and those of civil society.
In this talk I will examine the effects of deportation threat on "guest family networks". Here, with the adolescent threatened with deportation the entire family system is at risk. Thus, the border regime suddenly unintentionally has massive effects on German citizens, most of whom experience its violent nature and practices for the very first time. I will show what emotional effects the threat of deportation has on the families and what practices they develop to respond.