The Institutionalization of Mobility: Well-being and Social Hierarchies in Central Asian Translocal Livelihoods

Abstract

In the wider scientific debate, post-Soviet Central Asia has been primarily known for the question in what ways this region currently experiences a 'New Great Game' of geostrategy and resource-competition. In contrast to that, ethnographic research on the various cross-border mobilities, networks and identifications of non-elite actors from countries such as Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan has set off only recently. Proposing a conceptual approach based on 'translocality' and 'livelihood', this article presents in-depth case studies which explore how Central Asians engage in 'business-making', 'evolve' their Muslim piety, transgress rural-urban boundaries and experience ethnic marginalization in between 'home' and cities in Russia, China or Egypt. We show how mobility is institutionalized, i.e. how within these 'translocal livelihoods' geographic relocations do not only combine with social mobility, but that assessments on personal well-being and the orientation on cultural norms also draw on somebody's particular position within social hierarchies of gender and generation.

Therapeutic mobilities

“…For example, in Tim Creswell's three progress reports on mobilities research (Cresswell 2010(Cresswell , 2012(Cresswell , 2014 health and medicine are largely absent. A keyword search using health, therapeutic, disease or medical in the journal Mobilities resulted in just a handful of papers focused on translocal livelihoods (Schröder and Stephan-Emmrich 2016), later life (Nordbakke and Schwanen 2014), the connection between auto-mobility and urban sprawl (Freund and Martin 2007) and international medical travel (Ormond 2015). Many other papers address issues of health, well-being and medicine, without explicitly mentioning them in the title or in keywords.…”

“It doesn't make me any lessAboriginal”: The complex politics of translocal place‐making forIndigenous tertiary student migrants

“…This is perhaps particularly the case when migrants relocate to larger cosmopolitan cities from smaller communities of origin. Schroder and Stephan‐Emmrich (, p. 437), for example, describe the ways in which the homeland communities of young Central Asians who have migrated to large cities abroad and internally, are at once places inflected with “cultural pressures from the hierarchies of gender and generation,” and also vital sources of sociocultural relatedness, storied past belonging, and site of hope of a “glorious future return.” They are thus places from which leaving can provide the prospect of both greater freedom and opportunity, as well as greater longing.…”

“…In some instances (e.g., Schroder & Stephan‐Emmrich, ), youth migration to larger cities can be at once a means of escaping restrictive sociocultural norms in origin communities and pursuing individual aspirations. In this study, several described personal growth and gaining independence as a key driver of their migration: “I think some of the goals were to be independent … I didn't want to rely on my parents at all” (Participant 2, male).…”

Mobilities, Boundaries, and Travelling Ideas: Rethinking Translocality Beyond Central Asia and the Caucasus

“…Twenty-five years after the dissolution of the Soviet empire and in times of an emerging 'New Silk Road' through Eurasia, I engage with a broad range of economic agents: Kyrgyz traders in Novosibirsk, who sell Chinese merchandise in one of Russia's largest bazaars; Kyrgyz middlemen in Guangzhou, who guide their clients through the thick of Chinese manufacturing landscapes hunting for profitable wholesale deals; and, finally, Kyrgyz entrepreneurs in their nation's capital, Bishkek, some of whom are, in addition to importing 'raw materials' (e.g., fabric) from China, processing these materials into consumer goods (e.g., dresses). Along these various commodity chains originating in China, my aim is to trace how ethnic Kyrgyz earn their everyday living at home and abroad within their niche of post-Socialist capitalism as well as how their senses of wellbeing and identity are shaped by the myriad flows of things, people, and ideas across the borders of nation states and the boundaries of diverse linguistic, cultural, and other environments (see Schröder and Stephan-Emmrich 2014).…”