SUMMARY:

The article discusses the problem of labor migration from Uzbekistan to Russia, more specifically – the theme of migrants’ returning home. Sergei Abashin raises the question of whether the idea of returning home is only a narrative myth shared by people who in reality do not plan to return or it refers to the existence of a mass-scale practice of returning. According to the author, the myth and the practice are two modes of migration rather than two distinctive conditions that should be contrasted to each other. Therefore, he suggests viewing strategies of migration from the vantage point of different life scenarios regarded as normative within Uzbek society. He pays special attention to the concept of the “migrant house” that often emerges in migrants’ narratives as the reason for migration and its ultimate goal, thus bridging the point of departure and the destination.
Studying biographical stories of migrants from Uzbekistan that he collected in 2014−2015, the author is able to analyze the processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, including the link between imagination and reality in plans for building a house. The dominant migration scenario revealed here is conditioned by a sense of family obligations and structured by the family story. This scenario implies turning to migration when the need arises to make a change in social status or to pay for costly rituals (such as a wedding), or for constructing a “migrant’s house” as a precondition and symbol of one’s social status. Migration activity involves periodic declines, temporary or permanent returns to home, or the rotation of some migrant family members with others. Thus migration appears as built into constantly renewing cycles of family life, which makes it a fundamental factor. This scenario is built on the idea of fulfilling social obligations to the family and requires more or less constant presence “at home.” Therefore, returning is not just an emotional experience and a feeling of loyalty to one’s native country, but a strict social imperative advanced by the family and community.
Speaking of the common scenario, the author demonstrates its inner contradictory nature, which prompts a variety of practices and leads to conflicts of interest. The latter are present within migrant strategies as possibilities of choices, including the choice to stay, leave, or return. A choice is often made not out of strategic well-planned considerations but as a tactical decision under given circumstances. Besides the balance of interests, discussions concerning migrations produce contradictions and conflicts because of differences in roles and interests within the family. The balance thus achieved is always unstable, and existing multivector tendencies enable the possibility of change in the entire migration strategy.