Perception of Migrants by Muscovites Through the Lens of the Contact Hypothesis

Abstract

According to numerous pieces of research conducted in Europe and based on large-scale surveys, various contacts between migrants and receiving population have served as strong predictors of lesser intolerance towards migrants (though to varying extents). Quantitative research in Russia has brought similar results. The article argues that these findings alone, with all their statistical reliability, do not fill marked gaps in our knowledge on how and why interaction itself creates more tolerant or, possibly, more negativistic perceptions of migrants in a given national/regional setting. The article is an attempt to highlight these aspects of the theme through qualitative research taking Moscow as a case study. Drawing on a series of semi-structured interviews with Muscovites collected in 2014–2015, we will address the following questions: who might, more likely, be prone to interact with migrants and, oppositely, what makes Muscovites more reluctant to set up contacts; what might be the reasons behind their often unconscious anxiety about having migrants as neighbours in multistoried apartment buildings and what these contacts as neighbours might add to our understanding of specifics of “cultural racism” in a large city; how views of Muscovites about various migrants (especially preferences related to social status) manifest themselves in the post-Soviet setting; and finally, what is the local specifics, in comparison with Europe, of collapse of “defended neighbourhoods” in the city of Moscow.