Expulsions in the Russian North: migration processes and neoliberal policy

• Main Authors: Tatyana S. LYTKINA, Andrey V. SMIRNOV
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Russian
• Published: Northern Arctic Federal University 2019
• Subjects: social exclusion; expulsions; migration processes; neoliberal policy; northern regions of russia; development and colonization; demo; scipo; Russian North
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.17238/issn2221-2698.2019.37.94; http://arcticandnorth.ru/upload/iblock/c04/77_97.pdf; https://doaj.org/article/50eb101917de42f7ad44fd7dac82fe4c

The article summarizes the results of a long-term study of changes in living conditions of the population in the North during the formation of trade capitalism and the spread of neoliberal policy. Expulsion is considered as an institutionally organized way of exception in the form of state policy, actively supporting social polarization, contributing to consumer way of natural resource development and extensive use of before-built infrastructure, and accompanied by the isolation of the experience, disregard of the interests and violation of the rights of residents. The article proves that Soviet policy, interested in attracting labor to develop the Russian North and used a distribution system of goods for these purposes, did not contribute much to the consolidation of labor migrants in the northern territories as it initiated their return to the homeland at the end of their labor biography. The position of a “temporary worker” was formed by the proposed privileges, which served a compensation for work in adverse climatic conditions but did not contribute to the prospects for the development of the northern territories. At the same time, the interests of residents, who turned out to be cut off from prestigious jobs and found themselves in worse living conditions, were regularly ignored, and their rights were unrecognized. If, through vertical mobility and integration into the Soviet distribution system, it was possible to smooth out the inequities in the distribution of benefits, it became more difficult to hide this with the country's transition to the market and the beginning of a new phase of natural resource extraction. Moreover, considering the exclusion processes have become more widespread. Now not only the indigenous peoples of the North but also the second generation of migrants are among the vulnerable groups. The focus of the conflict has shifted and expressed itself in the relations between the residents of the Center and the regions.