AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	7. Africans In Russia
Paper ID	548
Author(s)	Holdsworth, Julia Claire
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	This paper explores the experiences of Black African migrants in the Former Soviet Union and shows how notions of belonging, exclusion and trans-nationalism are intertwined in everyday discourse. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Eastern Ukraine I explore the ways in which Community Organisations, which provide immediate material, emotional and social support also provide the medium through which Black Africans, experiencing extreme racism and exclusionary practices, create and maintain strong and positive identities and links with the African Diaspora. This paper is divided into three sections; initially I outline the history of Black African involvement in the territory of the Former Soviet Union and discuss some of the ideological shifts which have impacted on interactions between (successively) the Russian Empire, The USSR and post-Soviet states, and the African continent. In particular I examine the consequences of the shift from a politically motivated paternalistic stance during the Soviet era to a more antipathetic attitude, influenced partly by economic hardships experienced in recent years. In spite of the shifts which have taken place over this period I argue, with Lemon and Fikes (2002), that one theme has remained constant. Whenever Black Africans have been noted in these territories, they have been represented as ‘out of place’. Suggesting that this continues as a dominant trope through which to understand African / Russian relations, I employ Douglas’ (1966) notion of pollution, developed by Maalkii (1995) in respect of refugees, to suggest how racism towards Black Africans is predicated on notions of pollution. The second section develops this further through discussing the experiences of Black Africans, and Nigerians in particular, in the current context. I discuss the different ways which Black Africans, at a grassroots level, experience and respond to racism and exclusion which operate at institutional, societal and individual levels. In the final section of this paper I explore one response in detail – a network of Community Organisations operating at local, national and international level. These organisations operate in social, political, economic and cultural arenas and I argue they foster a sense of community and promote a collective, positive, sense of ‘Nigerian-ness’. I then turn to explore the ways these Community Organisations communicate and reinforce norms of how Nigerians should act, and what it means to be Nigerian. I show how shared identity is promoted and enacted through these processes as these communities act to protect those who conform from the aggressive behaviours of others in Ukraine. In conclusion I show that it is partially through these Community Organisations that Nigerians foster and maintain cosmopolitan and trans-national identities, effectively inverting their ‘out of place-ness’. Douglas, M. (1966) Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo London: Routledge Malkki, L. (1995) Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press Lemon, A. and Fikes, K. (2002) African Presence in Former Soviet Spaces in, Annual Review of Anthropology, 31:497-524

Black Africans in the Former Soviet Union: Experiences of Exclusion and Belonging