From Kirghiz to Kyrgyz: Ethnic Identity Discourses of Kyrgyz Female Migrants in Russia [before doctoral defense]

Kivonat, rövid leírás

Migration has become one of the most significant social processes in the contemporary world. The movement of people across borders changes demographic structures, labour markets, cultural landscapes, and influences political debates in both sending and receiving societies. While migration is often analysed through economic or demographic indicators, it also raises broader questions related to belonging and identity. Individuals who migrate navigate multiple cultural environments, institutional structures, and systems of meaning, which can reshape how they understand themselves and how they are perceived by others. Migration, therefore, constitutes both a process of mobility and a social experience that shapes how identity is interpreted and negotiated. Scholars across sociology, anthropology, and social psychology have emphasised that identity is not a fixed or stable attribute but rather a dynamic and socially constructed process (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000; Jenkins, 1997; Verkuyten, 2019). According to this stance, individuals continuously interpret their identities in relation to other social categories, historical narratives, and everyday social interactions. Migration intensifies these processes by placing individuals across multiple social, cultural, and institutional contexts simultaneously. Living in between these contexts can make previously stable understandings of belonging more contested, requiring individuals to renegotiate their relationships to ethnic identity and language.