Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Sociology
Publisher
SAGE
School
School of Arts and Humanities
RAS ID
64600
Funders
Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship / The Centre for German and European Studies (St Petersburg State University - Bielefeld University) / UWA PSA Fieldwork Award
Abstract
In this article, based on ethnographic research conducted in Perth, Western Australia and Madrid, Spain, we consider how community is understood and enacted for Russian-speaking migrants and its role in cultural (re)production. Studies often overlook the important role of struggle, contestation and power relations in everyday practices of community making. Drawing on Bourdieu’s field theory, we describe the Russian-speaking migrant community as a structured social space in which community leaders and migrant institutions compete for the right to represent the community. As a result of power differentials, contested ideas about what Russian-speaking culture is and how it should be transmitted, maintained and produced are established, (re)produced and revised. The community is perceived by its own members as disunited and/or consisting of members with whom migrants do not want to identify, forming a ‘community of unbelonging’.
DOI
10.1177/00380385231219105
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Akifeva, R., Baldassar, L., & Fozdar, F. (2024). Enacting migrant community: Struggles and unbelonging in the field of Russian-speaking cultural production. Sociology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/00380385231219105