Ksenia Sizonova

Supervisors: Dr Agnieszka Kubal, Dr Victoria Redclift

Present status: MPhil Candidate

Working title of thesis: Discrimination and resistance – how do Kyrgyz migrant women reflect on their everyday experiences in Russia?

Research: The Central Asian labor migrants’ experience in Russia was studied as characterized by racial discrimination and lack of access to legal defense, however, little is known about gender-specific experiences. My project asks how the Kyrgyz migrant women reflect on their everyday lives in Russia. My aim is to shed light on how women adapt to, navigate, and covertly resist racial and sexist discrimination in a non-democratic context. The project entails ethnographic fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan. I will conduct in-depth interviews with Kyrgyz migrant women temporarily visiting home, stay-behind family members, and those who returned. I will also engage in digital ethnography and participant observation. This will allow me to account for the role of transnationalism and digital technologies in Kyrgyz migrant women’s experience. By focusing on the stories of Kyrgyz migrant women, I will advance the understanding of migration, racialization, and gender in the region.

Research interests: race and racialisation, gender, migration, citizenship, decoloniality, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, the Caucasus

Research Centre Affiliation: FRINGE, Sarah Parker Remond Centre (NB: non-SSEES)