“She no Longer Greets Us – That’s What Going to Russia Means”: The Return of Migrant Children as an Object of Moral Judgment in Tajikistan

Abstract

As the economic crisis unfolds and migration legislation becomes increasingly tightened, the issue of return migration comes to the forefront and acquires particular relevance. Most studies that focus on migrations stemming from Central Asian countries tend to rely on purely economic data and macro theories in their attempts to assess the degree of success of returning migrants. The mobility of actors other than the migrants themselves is usually not taken into account, so these studies do not specifically help us to understand what exactly happens to migrants in their own “sending” society when they return. I focus on experiences of migrants’ children, drawing on the field research conducted in northern Tajikistan in early 2015, and address the following questions, among the others: In what ways does the experience of migration influence the children’s status in the community? What factors are in play in shaping the attitude towards different categories of children having migration experience? What discourses surround this issue? The goal of this study is to examine the issue of return migration in the context of local cultural norms, rather than formal economic criteria, in order to understand what is considered as socially acceptable return, how exactly it happens, and how it reshapes the ideas about mobility.