Articles by Daria Krivonos
Drawing on fieldwork among young among post-Soviet migrants in Helsinki (2014-2016) and Warsaw (2... more Drawing on fieldwork among young among post-Soviet migrants in Helsinki (2014-2016) and Warsaw (2020), the article seeks an answer to the following question: what kind of work does racialisation of Eastern European migrant workers accomplish? The paper analyses young post-Soviet migrants' position within the structures of racial capitalism in Europe, thus, shifting the focus from race as located in the body towards racialised positionings within the hierarchies of labour. I argue that following the analytical terms of racial capitalism and racial triangulation is a helpful way for thinking about the ways subjects racialised as 'Eastern European' are brought into the service of the capitalist order as located at a distance from both Blackness and hegemonic whiteness. In this article, I analyse the production and management of racial difference within whiteness and Europe itself for the purposes of economic exploitation. By bringing attention to the 'peripheralised' locations of the EU, the article highlights the workings of racialisation in the locations that tend to escape race critical analysis.
The opening up of sociology to postcolonial and critical race thinking has been predominantly ani... more The opening up of sociology to postcolonial and critical race thinking has been predominantly animated by the relations between western metropoles and their (post)colonies. 'Eastern Europe' seems to be an uneasy fit in this discussion, being excluded from the idea of 'Europe'; at the same time, it is not grouped together with non-European Others in terms of colonial histories. Drawing on fieldwork among young Russian and Ukrainian migrant workers in Helsinki (2014-2016) and Warsaw (2020), the article examines global connections that tie the North/West, South and East in these migrants' imaginaries and material lives after migration. I demonstrate that Eastern European subjects are not outsiders to global racial capitalist orders but participate in sustaining a colonial project of Europe, whiteness and labour. The article argues for the importance of articulating postcoloniality of Eastern Europe visa -vis the West together with race to show the complicity of semi-peripheries with the global structures of racial capitalism.
Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics, 2020
Drawing on two ethnographic projects, one among Russian-speaking women engaged in commercial sex,... more Drawing on two ethnographic projects, one among Russian-speaking women engaged in commercial sex, the other among young Russian-speaking migrants in Finland, we interrogate how the construct of Eastern European female body is positioned in relation to the norm of (Western) Europeanness and white femininity. We show how Russian-speaking migrant women in Finland learn of their 'Russianness' and 'Easternness' through the circulation of the 'whore' stigma. We analyse these processes of racialisation and sexualisation in the context of the Finnish national project based on gender equality and women's liberation norms. While normative Western Europeanness has recently been constructed through emancipated sexuality and the exclusion of non-Western Others as sexually repressed, the bodies of Russian-speaking women are perceived as sexually excessive and in need of toning down. Focusing on the (self-)policing of Russian-speaking migrant women's bodies and the ways they navigate acceptable and unacceptable forms of gendered self-presentation, we demonstrate how these women are construed as not emancipated enough and hence not quite white. The article thereby contributes to understanding hierarchies of whiteness within the East/West dynamics of race as they pertain to gender and sexuality.
Ethnic and Racial Studies , 2020
In "Undoing Homogeneity in the Nordic Region: Migration, Difference, and the Politics of Solidarity". Keskinen, S., U. D. S. & Toivanen, M. (eds.). Abingdon: Routledge, p. 103-118 16 p. (Studies in Migration and Diaspora)., 2019
The article argues that the post-Soviet youth construct their migratory projects as an effort tow... more The article argues that the post-Soviet youth construct their migratory projects as an effort towards social distinction vis-a-vis post-socialist imaginary. We argue that their migration can be understood as a search for distinctiveness and for what is perceived as a ‘better’, that is, more western, lifestyle. Analysing their narratives through the prism of imagination, we demonstrate how young Russian-speakers vision the position of the post-socialist condition within the global coloniality of power and claim their belonging to the western project as educated young people with global cultural capitals. The article brings the case of Russian-speakers’ migration within debates on global coloniality and offers a contribution to the theorising of post-socialist imaginaries in the context of global coloniality and sociological imagination. The analysis is based on a multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in 2014–2016 in Helsinki, Finland.
Current Sociology, 2019
The article focuses on young Russian-speaking migrants’ day-to-day institutional encounters with ... more The article focuses on young Russian-speaking migrants’ day-to-day institutional encounters with labour market activation policies in Finland. The analysis contributes to the discussion on labour activation through analysing the workings of gender, migration and racialisation in welfare encounters through ethnographically grounded research. The argument of the article is two-fold. First, it argues that racialised populations are
sustained in a ‘migrant worker’ subject position not only through exclusion from rights and legal status, but also through the targeted inclusion of the ‘undeserving’ poor with formal rights into worker-citizenship through workfare. Second, the article shows racialisation of ‘migrant workers’ as a gendered process with essentialised gendered
logics of what skills migrant men and women supposedly possess ‘naturally’. Activation thus maintains and exacerbates the segregation of migrant and racialised youth into gendered and racialised labour markets. The analysis is based on ethnographic fieldwork in youth career counselling in a metropolitan area of Finland in 2015–2016.
This article analyses the position of young unemployed Russian-speaking migrants in Finland as be... more This article analyses the position of young unemployed Russian-speaking migrants in Finland as being both racialised and racialising Others. Young Russian-speakers’ claims to whiteness are analysed against the backdrop of their racialised position as well as the neoliberal reshaping of class relations in Finland. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on young Russian-speakers’ employment in Helsinki, the article shows that young Russian-speakers’ racialisation of Others is a modality through which their own racialised class position is lived and narrated. Through such boundary-making processes young Russian-speakers resist being classified as ‘welfare abusers’, the unemployed and low-skilled workers. The article argues that young Russian-speakers’ efforts to be recognised as white should be understood as a struggle against classification, through which they generate alternative value as deserving citizens and respectable workers.
This article examines the interconnectedness of geographical and social mobility using the empiri... more This article examines the interconnectedness of geographical and social mobility using the empirical case of young, highly educated Russian women’s migration to Finland. My qualitative interview data shows that an insecure migrant status channels young migrant women to a precarious gendered path from au pairing to studying and working in a low-skilled sector in order to continue residence in Finland. The stories of highly educated migrant women doing domestic and low-skilled work show how geographical mobility is achieved at the cost of descending social status. The empirical discussion demonstrates that “subjects on the move” celebrated by the new mobility paradigm are, in fact, unequally mobile, and achieve mobility at a high social cost, including social downgrading and deskilling. Furthermore, structural vulnerabilities in terms of insecure migrant status create dependence on employers and produce opportunities for the exploitation of migrant labour.
Papers by Daria Krivonos
Drawing on two ethnographic projects, one among Russian-speaking women engaged in commercial sex,... more Drawing on two ethnographic projects, one among Russian-speaking women engaged in commercial sex, the other among young Russian-speaking migrants in Finland, we interrogate how the construct of Eastern European female body is positioned in relation to the norm of (Western) Europeanness and white femininity. We show how Russian-speaking migrant women in Finland learn of their ‘Russianness’ and ‘Easternness’ through the circulation of the ‘whore’ stigma. We analyse these processes of racialisation and sexualisation in the context of the Finnish national project based on gender equality and women’s liberation norms. While normative Western Europeanness has recently been constructed through emancipated sexuality and the exclusion of non-Western Others as sexually repressed, the bodies of Russian-speaking women are perceived as sexually excessive and in need of toning down. Focusing on the (self-)policing of Russian-speaking migrant women’s bodies and the ways they navigate acceptable an...
European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology
This article analyses how processes of ‘human capitalisation’ work in various labour-market activ... more This article analyses how processes of ‘human capitalisation’ work in various labour-market activation services aimed at young people in Finland. Drawing on multi-site ethnographic research on activating workshops, public employment services, and career counselling for youth in the Helsinki metropolitan region of Finland in 2014–2016, we trace sites and instances of human capitalisation. Capturing processes through which previously non- economic areas of life become economised, human capitalisation marshalls abilities, skills, knowledge and a consumeristic understanding of self- responsibility. Its promise is a more flexible workforce that can be adjusted to the varied demands of the labour market in the future. Taking a Foucauldian approach to governmentality, our research demonstrates that activation practices focus on generating a form of human capital that enhances a particular relation to and understanding of one’s self, body and skills.
Sociology
The article argues that the post-Soviet youth construct their migratory projects as an effort tow... more The article argues that the post-Soviet youth construct their migratory projects as an effort towards social distinction vis-a-vis post-socialist imaginary. We argue that their migration can be understood as a search for distinctiveness and for what is perceived as a ‘better’, that is, more western, lifestyle. Analysing their narratives through the prism of imagination, we demonstrate how young Russian-speakers vision the position of the post-socialist condition within the global coloniality of power and claim their belonging to the western project as educated young people with global cultural capitals. The article brings the case of Russian-speakers’ migration within debates on global coloniality and offers a contribution to the theorising of post-socialist imaginaries in the context of global coloniality and sociological imagination. The analysis is based on a multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in 2014–2016 in Helsinki, Finland.
International Feminist Journal of Politics
Whiteness is not a matter of skin pigmentation or phenotypical traits but a structural system of ... more Whiteness is not a matter of skin pigmentation or phenotypical traits but a structural system of advantage that grants privilege to white people. Whiteness as a system of supremacy and privilege is based on exclusion of other groups, and hence, becomes a site of struggle for people who don’t meet the social ideal of whiteness, such as, for example, Russian-speakers in Finland.
This article examines how emotions create an affective solidarity in a pro-governmental youth mov... more This article examines how emotions create an affective solidarity in a pro-governmental youth movement in Russia. The article shows that despite a formally strong affiliation with the aims of political socialization of youth in Russia, young activists from Vse doma movement describe their participation in a political project through the joy of being together, communication (obschenie), emotional flows (dvizhuha), bodily and risky practices, rather than ideological values. Drawing on the scholarship on emotional politics and social movements, the article switches the lens from the political to emotional and embodied sense of engagement. The discussion in this article is based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with young people. The article proposes the notion of ‘affective solidarity’ as a useful lens for the analysis of youth political activism.
Book Reviews by Daria Krivonos
Although initially migration studies were rather numb to gender, there is a growing body of schol... more Although initially migration studies were rather numb to gender, there is a growing body of scholarship on the position of women in international migration. This literature demonstrates that regardless of the variety of their migration patterns, migrant women who participate in paid labor markets in Western Europe and the United States are often concentrated in the reproductive economy (e.g., Farris 2015). A detailed ethnography of Ukrainian domestic workers in Italy and the United States, On the Shoulders of Grandmothers: Gender, Migration, and Post-Soviet Nation-State Building is a contribution to the important body of work, which brings attention to the role of migrant care workers in the making of life. Cinzia Solari's impressive ethnographic research, including 160 in-depth interviews across Italy, the United States, and Ukraine, studies globalization from the bottom up, bringing close attention to gendered migrant subjectivities in migration. The author beautifully argues that "gendered migrant subjectivities are a key site for understanding the production of transnational social fields, nation-state building, neoliberalism, and the working of global capitalism" (p. 8). The book makes an intervention in existing research on gender and migration, connecting female migration to the analysis of nation-building processes. Solari challenges methodological nationalism present in the dominant vision of nationbuilding, which is typically understood as taking place within nations. Instead, the book illustrates how nation-states and national identities are defined in relation to global flows of people and ideas. Ukraine is a primary test case for this type of analysis. The country ranks fifth among top emigration countries, which has major consequences for post-Soviet transformation and the building of an independent Ukrainian nation. As Solari's research makes clear, new Ukraine is literally built on the shoulders of the Ukrainian women who do the gendered labor of caring for others' families abroad while being separated from their own. And while the labor of these women sustains the Ukrainian nation through social remittances, they are stigmatized as "prostitutes" both by the Ukrainian state and, partly, by the Ukrainian diaspora abroad.
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Articles by Daria Krivonos
sustained in a ‘migrant worker’ subject position not only through exclusion from rights and legal status, but also through the targeted inclusion of the ‘undeserving’ poor with formal rights into worker-citizenship through workfare. Second, the article shows racialisation of ‘migrant workers’ as a gendered process with essentialised gendered
logics of what skills migrant men and women supposedly possess ‘naturally’. Activation thus maintains and exacerbates the segregation of migrant and racialised youth into gendered and racialised labour markets. The analysis is based on ethnographic fieldwork in youth career counselling in a metropolitan area of Finland in 2015–2016.
Papers by Daria Krivonos
Book Reviews by Daria Krivonos
sustained in a ‘migrant worker’ subject position not only through exclusion from rights and legal status, but also through the targeted inclusion of the ‘undeserving’ poor with formal rights into worker-citizenship through workfare. Second, the article shows racialisation of ‘migrant workers’ as a gendered process with essentialised gendered
logics of what skills migrant men and women supposedly possess ‘naturally’. Activation thus maintains and exacerbates the segregation of migrant and racialised youth into gendered and racialised labour markets. The analysis is based on ethnographic fieldwork in youth career counselling in a metropolitan area of Finland in 2015–2016.