1. Understanding Labor, Law and Informality in Non-Western Migration Regimes

On March 18, 2019, Safar (a pseudonym) was on an airplane heading to Istanbul in search of new adventures. The evening flight from Tashkent to Istanbul on Uzbekistan Airways took just under six hours. Viewing the glittering evening of Istanbul through the airplane window, Safar was full of excitement: the city was indeed beautiful as described in the Turkish soap operas of which he was so fond. This is where he would spend the next several years as a migrant worker, earning and sending home money.

His seven-year-long migrant life in Moscow ended abruptly in October 2018 due to an entry ban that prevented him from returning to Russia for the next three years. Two years ago, he began building a large house of his own in his home village in rural Fergana, Uzbekistan. The unexpected entry ban to Russia thwarted Safar’s plan to complete the final work on his house. After returning to Uzbekistan, Safar found it difficult to reintegrate into village life and find a decent-paying job. His quest for a stable income and the need to finish the house construction prompted him to look for new opportunities. He was not the only person in the village to receive an entry ban. Many other entry-banned villagers altered their migration routes to Kazakhstan or Turkey depending upon their connections and preferences. Safar was relieved when he learned about the successful migrant career of Botir, his fellow villager, who worked in Istanbul and encouraged Safar to try his luck in Turkey.

At the Istanbul Grand Airport after passing through customs and passport control, Safar walked toward the airport forecourt, where Botir was waiting for him. Botir welcomed Safar with a smile; they shook hands and hugged each other, since they had not seen each other for five years. Botir had been working in Istanbul for almost five years by then, doing various jobs, such as sending cargo to Uzbekistan, meeting passengers from Uzbekistan at the airport and transferring them to their accommodation as well as finding jobs for other migrants for a fee. Safar paid Botir US$100 to meet him at the airport and to help with his initial settlement in Istanbul. In a way, this represented an informal adaptation service for Safar, new to the city and unable to speak the local language. In a taxi cab to the city, Botir bragged about his successful migrant career in Istanbul, earning up to US$1000 per month. However, it seemed odd to Safar that Botir did not have a car of his own if he was that successful. As an experienced migrant in Moscow, Safar knew that a migrant’s success definitively included owning a car. Regardless, Safar was happy that after several months of unemployment, he could finally get out of Uzbekistan and begin earning money in Istanbul, allowing him to support his family members and complete construction on his house.

It was already past midnight when they arrived at noisy and busy Kumkapi, a neighborhood located in Istanbul’s Fatih district. Through a dark hallway and steep stairs, Botir guided Safar to a two-room apartment filled with a dozen other men, all Uzbeks from different parts of their country. “Here you pay 15 Turkish liras [approximately US$2] per night. You can stay here until you find a shared room in another apartment,” Botir explained to Safar. The cramped room full of bunk beds and filled with the smell of sweat reminded Safar of his migrant life back in Moscow. Tired after a long journey, Safar was happy that he could finally sleep.

The next morning, he awoke to the loud sounds of the azan (the Islamic call to prayer) coming from all sides. Although not a practicing Muslim, Safar immediately felt an inner tranquility as he experienced a foretaste of the joy and freedom of fulfilling a Muslim’s task of praying. Remembering how difficult it was to practice his religion in Russia, Safar promised himself to pray in one of those grandiose mosques scattered across Istanbul, at least on Fridays. After breakfast, Safar, along with Botir and couple of his friends, began his first day by familiarizing himself with the neighborhood. While walking through the neighborhood, Safar was surprised by the presence of thousands of Uzbeks in the streets of Kumkapi. In the neighborhood, wherever he looked he saw signs of the Uzbek presence: dozens of cafés serving Uzbek food, many clothing stores and stalls selling fashions suitable to Uzbek culture, numerous cargo companies that ship clothes to Uzbekistan, Uzbek pop songs loudly playing, advertisements for accommodation and job in the Uzbek language and even nos (Uzbek snuff) sold by a local Uzbek-speaking Turk. The existence of such an “Uzbek enclave” in the middle of Istanbul was something unimaginable for Safar, who spent many years in Moscow where migrants were dispersed across different parts of the city and had to remain invisible given the repressive legal environment offering few opportunities to display their ethnic and cultural identities (Fig. 1.1).

Because Kumkapi holds the distinction as the most ethnically diverse, impoverished and crime-prone area of Istanbul, police frequently patrol the neighborhood. For Safar, who previously worked in Moscow and regularly paid bribes to Russian police officers, it was quite logical that police are corrupt everywhere and always seek reasons to “milk migrants” (i.e., extort money from migrants). Reflecting on his past experiences, Safar assumed that he would have to minimize his visibility in public places and avoid any possible encounter with Turkish police officers. Based on his Moscow experiences, during those initial days in Istanbul, he was quite anxious about police corruption and quickly hid or ran in the opposite direction whenever a police car approached, an odd behavior which surprised his fellow villagers. However, after spending a few days in Istanbul, Safar realized that Turkey had a relatively liberal legal immigration regime. Unlike life in Moscow, Safar did not need to bribe Turkish police officers and enjoyed relatively free mobility in Istanbul. Another pleasant difference from Russia was the weak enforcement of immigration and labor laws in Turkey. Thus, migrants in Istanbul could easily find work without a residence or work permit given Turkish authorities’ tacit acceptance of cheap and legally unprotected migrant labor.

However, no matter how much he enjoyed walking freely in Istanbul, Safar had to find a job as soon as possible. Botir and other migrants all suggested that Safar seek assistance from a shirkat (an intermediary), an individual who will find a job for a migrant for a fee equaling a half-month’s salary. Botir, himself an occasional intermediary, did not have anything to offer Safar at that time, but knew other shirkats in the neighborhood. The first job Safar found via a shirkat was in a textile sweatshop in the Bayrampaşa district of Istanbul, located in the basement of a building which barely met the minimum standard for working conditions. In that job, Safar’s primary tasks involved ironing women’s blouses and packaging them for sale. Since he was accustomed to hard work in Russia, he did not mind working long hours in poor conditions. What disappointed him, however, was the low salary: approximately US$350 per month, working 12 hours a day with a 30-minute break, and one day off from work each week. In comparison, for this arduous schedule and work, Safar could earn as much as US$1000 a month in Moscow in the construction sector.

Unhappy with the working conditions and low pay, Safar once more cursed the day he met a Russian police officer in the Prospekt Mira metro station in Moscow. It was that officer who fined him for an expired residence registration (registratsiia), which eventually resulted in a three-year entry ban to Russia. Normally, Safar could find “common ground” with Russian police officers, who would “not notice” any deficiency in Safar’s documents for a bribe of 1000 to 2000 rubles (US$15–30). But, he was unlucky on October 27, 2018, when he was stopped by a police officer in the Prospekt Mira station for an ID check. Since Safar’s residence registration had already expired, he immediately offered money. However, the police officer refused the bribe because they were conducting a raid in order to fulfill a monthly “illegal migrant catching” quota. So, Safar was fined for failing to renew his residence registration, a fine which led to an entry ban. A month later, when Safar returned to his home village for a funeral, he was unable to buy a return airline ticket to Moscow. At the ticket sales agency, he was told that he had a three-year zapret na v’ezd (entry ban) to Russia, an entry ban which possibly resulted from the aforementioned fine.

Now, in Istanbul, briefly recalling all of these past events, Safar could do nothing but accept this low-paying labor-intensive job. Moreover, he learned that most of the other migrants were working in similar conditions for a similar salary. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was no formal employment agreement between the Turkish patron (boss) and Safar. The patron just took photocopies of Safar’s passport and randevu (an appointment slip with an immigration office to submit the residence permit application). As the days passed, Safar learned that his patron was exploitative, often demanding him to work even faster and harder. The patron tried to squeeze every ounce of juice from his workers. Safar often remembered his work in Russia, where employers tried to comply with the minimum working conditions and paid employees for overtime work. Close to the end of the first month of Safar’s work at the sweatshop, the patron became even more capricious and began scolding him with or without a reason, often loading him up with difficult tasks. While Safar was considering finding another job, the patron himself fired Safar for lack of diligence. Safar received only half of his salary, since the other half went to the shirkat.

It was only after holding several similar short-term jobs that Safar learned about an unofficial agreement between dishonest shirkats and employers. In this scheme, shirkats would regularly provide employers with cheap labor in exchange for half of a monthly salary. It was in the interest of the shirkat that migrants remained in a precarious situation and frequently lost their jobs. This meant every time a migrant lost her/his job, s/he was forced to turn to a shirkat to find a new position. Thus, the shirkat maintained regular communication with employers, encouraging them to fire their worker if they did not like them. This situation contrasts starkly with that in Russia, where migrants could “deploy” Chechen protection racketeers and prison-based criminal authorities against dishonest employers and intermediaries when they acted unfairly and did not satisfy oral agreements. But, in Istanbul, such street-level institutions were not available to Uzbek migrants. Each time after he was sacked from a workplace, Safar went to the shirkats with a complaint, but there was nothing he could do against the dishonest shirkats, who would blame him for his lack of zeal and flexibility in the workplace.

These exploitative practices far exceeded the hardships Safar experienced in Moscow. In Moscow, when faced with uncertainties and labor exploitation, Safar could rely on his village networks to find a job, whereas in Istanbul such village networks barely existed since Turkey has only recently become a major destination for Uzbek migrants. The lack of strong village networks rendered Safar dependent on the whims of the shirkats. He simply felt helpless in Istanbul, despite living in an “Uzbek enclave” in Kumkapi.

Safar’s case was, however, rather characteristic of the experiences of male migrants. Interestingly, Uzbek female migrants, representing approximately 75% of the Uzbek migrant population in Istanbul, occupied a better position in the Turkish labor market. This resulted from the fact that there was a high demand for female migrants in the labor-intensive sectors of the Turkish economy, such as in domestic care, textile and garment workshops, supermarkets, cleaning services, hotels and restaurants. Given this high demand, Uzbek female migrants earned more and could easily move from one job to another, while male migrants earned less and had limited employment opportunities. As a result, Uzbek female migrants occupied a higher position than male migrants and could develop strong networks and information channels in Istanbul.

These existing networks of Uzbek female migrants also provided some support to male migrants. Migrants like Safar quickly tapped into the existing female networks and received support from them when he needed help. Safar also felt women’s dominant positions in intimate relationships. There was a high need for male partners among Uzbek female migrants who sought intimate relationships. In Moscow, Safar had little chance to find Uzbek women and he had to pay for sex. But, in Istanbul, he found the opposite situation: women constituted the vast majority of the Uzbek migrant population; hence, an abundance of female migrants resulted in easy access to sex. Occasionally, Uzbek female migrants “rented” Safar and provided him with free dinner and a one-night hotel stay and, in return, he satisfied their sexual desire. Although Safar enjoyed his sexual adventures, the power relations were different this time. The fact that women initiated the intimate relationship and paid for his sexual services deeply affected his dignity and self-esteem. These experiences marked a significant change in Safar’s life and worldview about gender hierarchies, since he had to cope with these new realities and accept female dominance given his precarious situation in the Turkish labor market.

Safar’s experiences recounted above refined many of our pre-fieldwork assumptions that Uzbek migrants would feel “closer” to Turkey for a host of linguistic, cultural, religious and legal reasons. Instead, his case demonstrated that no matter how liberal the immigration legal regime is, migrants’ life trajectories and success in non-Western, nondemocratic migration contexts such as Russia and Turkey hinge upon other micro-level informal rules, kinship networks, gender roles, modes of incorporation into the labor market and the importance of a shared sense of understanding of “the rules of the game” under the conditions of informal employment. Despite the existence of draconian immigration laws and a border control infrastructure, combined with ever-increasing antimigrant sentiments within Russian society, Safar was nostalgic for his Russian experiences and planned to return to Russia as soon as his entry ban expired. The primary puzzle that Safar’s story generated was how and why, despite its highly punitive environment, Russia seemed to offer a greater sense of agency and opportunity than that available in Turkey. At the same time, Safar’s story demonstrated that his experiences were gender-specific and that Istanbul offered more agency and opportunities to female migrants than their male counterparts. Consequently, these comparisons, narrated through Safar’s experiences, illustrate not just that Istanbul and Moscow provide striking differences and similarities in terms of the migrant experience, moral assessment and legal adaptation, but also shed light on the interconnections between migrant agency, gender, informality and networks of trust and solidarity in non-Western migration locales.

Safar’s case also raised numerous theoretical and empirical questions pertaining to the study and conceptualization of contemporary migration regimes still confined to the North American and Western European migration contexts. His case shows that attempts to compare different migration regimes should extend beyond the mere analysis of migration policies and laws. That is, we should also consider the role of micro- and meso-level struggles, alliances and interactions that take place in different migration arenas, such as migrants’ internal lifeworlds and social networks, migrant labor market, documentation and legalization practices and shadow economy and street institutions. This implies that we need to place more emphasis on migrants’ agency and experiences in these multiple arenas as a lens for comparison. The investigation of migrants’ agency and experiences in these arenas enables us to understand how migration governance takes place on the ground, a study of which provides a more comparative perspective of varying migration regimes. In this regard, the following anecdote provided by Safar demonstrates that it is insufficient to focus on migration policies and laws; we also need to consider informal and extralegal processes that shape migration outcomes:

Once, three Uzbeks, childhood friends, met in Uzbekistan in a café for a reunion. Through fate, all three recently experienced migration: to the United States, to Turkey and to Russia, respectively. After several drinks, they all started boasting about their migration experiences in their host countries.

Amirbek (the migrant who worked in the US) arrogantly stated that his migrant life in America was very good: “America is really a land of opportunities. You have everything there; all your human rights are respected. Laws work there and you don’t have to pay bribes. Employers cannot exploit you and you receive extra pay if you work overtime. Even though I was on an expired tourist visa and was fully illegal, I had no problem finding a good job. I earned a lot of money, up to US$5000 a month, which was enough to buy a new car every month if I wanted to. But once I was caught by the police, they deported me from America to our beloved Uzbekistan, where I am now unemployed. Unfortunately, I cannot go back there anymore.”

Timur (the migrant who worked in Turkey) laughed sarcastically and said that America is nothing compared to Turkey, where the immigration system does not care much about illegal migrants. He said that “I did not earn that much — about US$400 a month. Laws don’t work in Turkey. Employers exploit you like a slave. But, the good thing is that I lived and worked there without a residence or work permit. Police didn’t bother me with ID checks. I could walk in any part of Istanbul freely. When I left Turkey last month, I just paid a fine at the airport. Because I paid that fine, I can return to Turkey tomorrow and find a job the next day.”

When it was Ramat’s (the migrant who worked in Russia) turn to talk about his experience, he modestly said that he earned up to US$800 per month. He added that “in Russia laws don’t work, human rights do not exist and the police and immigration are not nice. But, still, Russia is a land of opportunities. You can make a lot of money and be successful if you are good at bending laws and giving bribes or providing favors. Everything is possible in Russia if you have money. If you are caught by the police, you can pay a bribe and they let you go. If your employer is exploiting you or not paying your salary, you can use the street racketeers to solve problems. You can also fix immigration problems with money. For example, I got an entry ban, but I can bribe immigration officials or border guards and return to Russia.”

These stories left Amirbek and Timur (migrants who worked in the US and Turkey) wondering how it was possible to have so much leverage and to navigate in such a repressive and corrupt country like Russia.

This anecdote offers intriguing insights into the three different worlds of migration regimes, where migrants experienced contrasting working conditions and varying levels of immigration law enforcement. On the one hand, it shows that nondemocratic regimes such as Turkey and Russia are more open to migrants because they tacitly accept undocumented migration, ignore migrants’ rights and deny access to the social protection system, which produces a cheap, legally unprotected and deportable migrant labor force. On the other hand, it illustrates that liberal democracies such as the US are not easily accessible to migrants; however, once accessed, migrants enjoy more rights and better conditions. This anecdote also shows the divergence in immigration law enforcement among three migration regimes, indicating that migrants enjoy greater agency to negotiate and bend immigration laws in nondemocratic states given opaque legal systems and ubiquitous corruption. Consequently, the anecdote presented above and Safar’s experiences suggest that we need to go beyond the traditional approaches in comparative migration studies that largely focus on the comparison of migration policies and laws across various migration regimes. Rather, we might arrive at different findings when we try to understand and compare various migration regimes through the lived experiences of migrants. This bottom-up approach enables us to see the other side of the coin, that is, how migration policies and laws are perceived, experienced and renegotiated in the daily lives of migrant workers. These points thus lead to the following questions: Can existing migration regime frameworks, which are largely based on Western-centric approaches, be applied to the context of nondemocratic migration regimes? How can we account for the differences in state–society relations, legal cultures and governance patterns when comparing different migration regimes? And, how does the focus on migrants’ agency and experiences as a lens for comparison help us understand, compare and reconceptualize contemporary migration regimes? These represent the guiding questions reflected in this book.

This book is conceived as a critical reflection on contemporary migration regime scholarship, and, more generally, on comparative migration studies. Here, we aim to critically engage with and contribute to the following fields of research.

First, an extensive literature on immigration regimes exists, although this literature remains largely based on the study of migrants’ experiences and immigration policies in the context of Western liberal democracies in North America, Western Europe and Australia. A growing body of literature argues for the necessity of advancing existing theories in migration studies beyond Western-centric perspectives (Boucher & Gest, 2015; Breunig et al., 2012; Düvell, 2020; Gest & Boucher, 2021; Mirilovic, 2010; Natter, 2018; Urinboyev, 2020). Given the predominant research focus on migration processes in Western liberal democracies, major non-Western migration destinations elsewhere in the world remain underrepresented by existing theories within migration studies—including those top migrant-receiving countries such as Brazil, China, the Gulf states, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia and Turkey (Boucher & Gest, 2015; Natter, 2018). According to the World Migration Report (IOM, 2019), 12 of the 20 top destinations for international migrants in 2019 consisted of countries not belonging to the traditional western countries of North America, Western Europe and Australia. As editors of the International Migration Review (a leading journal in migration studies) admit, 80% of articles published in the journal since 2016 geographically focus on North America or Western Europe. This uneven geographic coverage is explained by the limited attention granted to migration dynamics beyond North America and Western Europe. “It also highlights the challenges that scholars writing about the wider geography of international migration face in attempts to situate their work in relation to hegemonic perspectives about two global regions” (IOM, 2019, p. 138). As Reeves (2013) maintains, this lacuna can be explained in part by the ongoing legacies of the “three-worlds division” of social-scientific labor (Chari & Verdery, 2009; Pletsch, 1981), which tend to focus on global South–North migrations, whereas migration processes in non-Western contexts remain underrepresented in comparative and theoretical debates about contemporary migration regimes. Consequently, without a comparative and comprehensive analysis of a large diversity of migration countries, we run the risk of relying on approaches and theoretical frameworks with limited applicability to non-Western migration contexts.

A second component to our rationale is that the dominant literature on contemporary migration regime typologies primarily focuses on Western-style democracies (Boucher & Gest, 2015; Düvell, 2020; Gest & Boucher, 2021). Addressing this gap is particularly important when considering the fact that many new migration hubs are nondemocratic, which in turn requires us to revise or produce new frameworks of analysis beyond existing migration regime typologies. In Western-style democracies, as Sassen (1996) and Joppke (1998) argue, the state’s arbitrary power and penchant to curtail migrant rights are significantly constrained by the international human rights regime, independent national courts and an active civil society. Unlike Western-style democracies, nondemocratic (and non-Western) immigrant-receiving countries are often characterized by autocratic regimes, poor human rights records, a weak rule-of-law and arbitrary law enforcement, systemic corruption, a large shadow economy and poorly organized civil societies and labor unions (Breunig et al., 2012; Mirilovic, 2010; Natter, 2018; Urinboyev, 2020). This implies that autocracies are less constrained than liberal democracies in terms of respecting and upholding the human rights of citizens (including those of migrants) and ignoring a population’s antimigrant sentiments, leverage which enables autocratic regimes to adopt more liberal immigration policies (Breunig et al., 2012). Given these differences, we cannot assume that frameworks constructed in the context of (Western) liberal democracies apply within the context of nondemocratic migration contexts.

Third, we also need to consider the variations within and across nondemocratic regimes when exploring the interconnections between regime type and immigration policymaking. The literature focusing on the interconnections between regime type and immigration policymaking continues to focus on the differences in immigration policymaking between democracies and autocracies (Boucher & Gest, 2015; Mirilovic, 2010), whereas relatively little attention has been devoted to the variations and similarities in immigration policymaking within and across authoritarian regimes (with the notable exceptions of Adamson & Tsourapas, 2020; Natter, 2018). An analysis of the comparative political-regimes literature demonstrates the rapid proliferation of political regimes that no longer fit within conventional classifications of democracy and authoritarianism (Diamond, 2002; Levitsky & Way, 2010). Different terms and names have been proposed to conceptualize these regimes: hybrid political regimes, competitive authoritarianism, electoral authoritarianism, partially liberalized regimes, semidemocracy, pseudo-democracy, illiberal democracy, semi-authoritarianism, soft authoritarianism, defective democracy or Freedom House’s “partly free” (Carothers, 2002; Diamond, 2002; Schedler, 2015; Zakaria, 1997). Thus, the immigration regime classifications and theories should reckon with the significant differences among nondemocratic regimes, which necessitates new approaches and tools. This implies that rather than merely juxtaposing democracies and autocracies as “two different worlds of immigration regimes,” it might also be useful to comparatively explore how immigration policymaking and enforcement vary within nondemocratic regimes.

Fourth, existing immigration regime typologies, as Boucher and Gest (2015) have rightly pointed out, often do not sufficiently clarify their indicators of comparison or characterize entire immigration regimes when examining some of their features. Other studies focus on specific dimensions such as labor migration, citizenship or integration outcomes or compare migration policies and laws, yet fail to place them within the broader perspective or framework of migration regime types. In other words, existing typologies suffer from unsystematic comparative analyses that insufficiently explain the rationale behind the aggregation of various features of immigration regimes (ibid.). As a result, the consolidation of complex and divergent migration policies and laws into broader migration regime typologies may obscure the important internal differences among countries rather than facilitate comparative empirical investigation (Finotelli & Michalowski, 2012). This task is especially challenging in the context of nondemocratic migration contexts, where a discrepancy exists between formal migration policies and laws (“law in books”) and their actual implementation (law in action), a gap which makes it difficult to construct the “building blocks” of a typology (Collier et al., 2012). In this respect, when comparing different migration regimes, we need to account for informal processes, practices and migrants’ agency that affect the outcomes of immigration policymaking.

Based on the above considerations, the central aim of this book is to contribute novel empirical and theoretical insights to scholarly debates on contemporary migration regimes and, more broadly, to comparative migration studies. In undertaking this task, we rely on a multisited transnational ethnographic study of Uzbek migrant workers in Russia, Turkey and Uzbekistan, conducted between January 2014 and January 2022. Drawing from our rich ethnographic data, we attempt to contribute to the literature in the following five distinct ways.

First, we respond to Boucher and Gest’s call, proposed in their paper “Migration studies at a crossroads: A critique of immigration regime typologies” (2015), to move beyond the Western-centric, largely democratic, migration regime typologies. This task is accomplished by presenting ethnographic material on Uzbek migrants’ everyday experiences in Moscow, Russia and Istanbul, Turkey. We focus on Russia and Turkey because they are archetypal non-Western, nondemocratic contexts as well as key international migration hotspots (UNPD, 2020). Yet, both Russia and Turkey remain underrepresented in comparative and theoretical debates on contemporary migration regimes (Düvell, 2020; Reeves, 2013; Urinboyev, 2020). Therefore, analyzing these two non-Western migration regimes is of huge importance given our need to address the uneven geographic coverage in the study of migration regimes, whereby current studies are limited to the analysis of migration regimes in North America and Western Europe (IOM, 2019, p. 138). Our ambition is thus to provide novel empirical material, a comparative perspective and methodological tools capable of informing efforts to construct approaches and theoretical frameworks for the study of non-Western migration regimes.

Second, we aim to contribute new empirical insights into migrants’ agency and daily experiences with immigration laws and policies in nondemocratic contexts. The dominant understanding is that in Western-style democracies the state holds limited power in curtailing migrant rights due to the international human rights regime, independent national courts and civil society pressure, while autocracies can better leverage restrictions to migrant rights (Breunig et al., 2012; Mirilovic, 2010). In other words, migrants in nondemocratic regimes are portrayed as passive recipients of state policies with little or no agency. However, these approaches that portray migrants as passive entities aggrandize the power of immigration laws and policies as a crucial factor defining migrants’ “fate” in the host country. Given that nondemocratic regimes lack a rule of law, have a large informal economy and are plagued by corruption, immigration policymaking and enforcement are largely shaped by informal regulatory processes in which street-level bureaucrats, employers, middlemen and migrant workers negotiate the contemporary migration system. Using the case of Uzbek migrant workers in Russia and Turkey, we demonstrate how migration governance processes in nondemocratic contexts are shaped by the informal power structures and by extralegal negotiations that respond to the needs and interests of various actors involved in the chain of migration policymaking and implementation.

Third, in this book, we also intend to extend on the knowledge base related to the interconnections between political regime type and immigration policymaking. Rather than focusing on the differences in immigration policymaking between democracies and autocracies, we examine how immigration policymaking and migrants’ experiences significantly vary across nondemocratic states. The comparative political regimes literature shows a waning usefulness in classifying political regimes into democracies and autocracies given the rapid increase of “in-between” regimes, which are neither clearly democratic nor conventionally authoritarian (Diamond, 2002; Levitsky & Way, 2010). This suggests that migration regime typologies that juxtapose democracy–autocracy binaries should also account for variations within nondemocratic contexts. These processes will be illustrated through the multisited ethnographic study of Uzbek migrant workers in Russia and Turkey, two archetypal nondemocratic migration contexts.

Fourth, we intend to contribute to efforts aimed at developing immigration regime typologies. Reckoning with Boucher and Gest (2015), we argue that a need exists to clearly specify indicators or dimensions for comparison. The existing typologies primarily focus on migration regimes in Western Europe and North America, comparing and classifying (1) migration outputs such as immigration laws and policies; (2) immigration control policies; (3) English-speaking settler societies, European States with post-colonial and guest worker migration systems as well as new countries of immigration; (4) the “settler societies,” the Nordic countries with “colonizers” and the highly restrictionist “noncolonizing” countries; and (5) “classic countries of immigration,” “reluctant countries of immigration” and “recent countries of immigration.” These typologies do not cover non-Western migration regimes such as Brazil, China, the Gulf states, Malaysia, Russia and Turkey, even though they have already become top migration hubs worldwide. Another factor adding to this shortcoming is that many non-Western migration regimes are nondemocratic, meaning there is a need to create new frameworks of analysis beyond the existing democratic state-centric paradigms. This task becomes more challenging since nondemocratic regimes often suffer from a weak rule of law and arbitrary enforcement, whereby a discrepancy exists between formal migration policies and laws (“law in books”) and their actual implementation (law in action). Therefore, when comparing immigration regimes in nondemocratic contexts, it is more fruitful to focus on migration outcomes (what actually happens on the ground) and migrants’ agency than on migration outputs (policies, laws and regulations) and formal opportunity structures. With these considerations in mind, we focus in this book on migration outcomes in Russia and Turkey by providing comparative ethnographic material on Uzbek migrant experiences with immigration laws and policies in Moscow and Istanbul.

Fifth, this book aims to extend the scholarship on Central Asian migration, which has grown significantly in the last decade. The overwhelming majority of research on this topic covers the issues of labor migration to and within Russia (Abashin, 2014; Dave, 2014a; Eraliev & Heusala, 2021; Kubal, 2016; Kuznetsova & Round, 2018; Reeves, 2015; Schenk, 2018; Turaeva & Urinboyev, 2021; Urinboyev, 2020). This is understandable, since Russia remains the primary destination for Central Asian (including Uzbek) migrant workers. Moreover, Central Asian migrants constitute the largest migrant population in Russia. Yet, a recently growing body of research extends to the Gulf states, Kazakhstan, Japan, South Korea and Turkey (Bashirov, 2018; Dadabaev & Soipov, 2020; Dave, 2014b; Inci & Altintop, 2020; Stephan-Emmrich, 2018), reflecting the recent diversification of destinations for migrants from the region. However, the number of such studies remains rather insignificant. Although the abovementioned countries are mostly non-Western, migration processes and outcomes take a different shape and form in all of these contexts. Here, we aim to fill this gap in two ways: (1) we explore migration processes in Turkey through the prism of Uzbek migrants; and (2) we present a comparative perspective on Central Asian migrants’ experiences in Russia and Turkey. In this book, we provide intriguing empirical material given that many of the informants (migrants) we encountered during our fieldwork worked both in Russia and Turkey, allowing us to collect rich data on migrants’ life histories and experiences in these two migration contexts.

As outlined above, many non-Western migrant-receiving countries are nondemocratic, lack a rule of law, have a large informal economy and are plagued by systemic corruption. In such nondemocratic migration regimes, migration governance processes are largely shaped by informal power structures and extralegal negotiations that take place in multiple social arenas, leading to different outcomes and unintended consequences (Eder, 2015; Fargues, 2009; Garcés-Mascareñas, 2010; Killias, 2010; Urinboyev, 2020). This implies that, even if we conduct a thorough investigation of the formal migration policies and laws, our analysis may not reflect actual de facto circumstances (Money, 1999). Given the gap between government immigration policy and actual immigration outcomes, efforts aiming to compare migration regimes may benefit further from focusing on migrants’ agency and migration outcomes than on migration outputs (laws and policies). As Boucher and Gest (2015) suggest, focusing on migration outcomes may prove more fruitful when comparing different migration regimes given that outcomes reflect what actually happens “on the ground”—that is, the reality as experienced by migrants. This is especially true in the context of nondemocratic regimes, where policies and laws are poorly implemented or implemented in ways that often contradict their original aims and spirit. One possible inference from such discussions is that it might be more productive to focus on migrants’ agency and experiences of migration policies and laws (migration outcomes) when comparing various migration regimes.

The theoretical premise of the book stems from an understanding that no single, integrated set of rules exist within any society, whether encoded in law, sanctified by religion or enshrined as rules for daily social behavior. Quite simply, no uncontested universal normative code guides people’s lives—the outcomes of laws, regulations and policies are determined by the struggles, alliances and interplay between various social forces which take place in different social arenas. Thus, if we aim to understand and compare migrants’ agency and experiences in various migration regimes, we should examine not only formal immigration laws and regulations (migration policy outputs), but we also need to examine how these laws and policies are perceived, experienced and negotiated by the multitude of actors involved in migration processes (migration outcomes). Thus, when comparing various migration regimes, we should not only examine migration outputs and formal opportunity structures but also focus on migration outcomes, a process which can be articulated by exploring power struggles, alliances and interactions in varying arenas of migration governance where street-level bureaucrats, employers, intermediaries, landlords and migrant workers among others interact with one another. We argue that in these social arenas, rules are not clear cut and power relations are unequal, although each actor has some degree of agency and may exert influence over the final outcome. In this book, we refer to these various arenas shaping the outcomes of migration policies and laws as “migration arenas.”

To explain and conceptualize the struggles and interactions within various migration arenas, we draw on Eugen Ehrlich’s theory of living law, developed in his Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law (Ehrlich, 1912). Ehrlich’s concepts of living law and social associations are instructive for understanding why many states fail to valorize their laws and policies in everyday life in spite of their coercive power. Ehrlich argues that the law is not the only regulator of political, social, intellectual and economic life, but that many other normative orders influence social behavior more effectively than the law. For Ehrlich, society consists of a multitude of social associations, among which lies the state. He distinguishes between the law created by the state (juristic law and statutes) and informal norms produced by various social associations (living law). This means that coercion and normative pressure stem not only from the state, but also from social associations. As Ehrlich notes, social associations whether organized or unorganized—whether called country, home, residence, religious communion, family, circle of friends, social life, political party, industrial association or the good will of a business—make certain demands upon individuals in exchange for that which they give. Furthermore, the norms dominating within these associations influence individuals’ social behavior more forcibly than the laws of the state. Individuals conduct themselves according to the law only when made imperative by their social relations and associations. Therefore, it is not state law, but the living law that dominates everyday life even though it is not posited in legal propositions and emerged independently of state law from the inner order of various social associations (Banakar, 2008; Urinboyev, 2013). In this sense the social order is established, maintained and transformed via the continuous struggles and interplay between various social associations. Thus, Ehrlich’s theory of living law is highly instructive for those interested in understanding the social arenas and contexts in which various formal and informal regulatory structures and norms interact and thereby shape the outcomes of migration policies and laws.

Although Ehrlich’s living law theory provides useful insights, it is primarily concerned with the interplay between the state and social associations. This theoretical perspective, however, insufficiently explains the inner workings and dynamics of social associations, meaning we need additional theoretical tools to analyze the relations, struggles and norms within different associations. In this respect, we utilize Bourdieu’s (1993) theory of social fields to understand and conceptualize social positions, power relationships and norms in different migration (social) arenas. In his theory of social fields, Bourdieu maintains that the social world consists of various social fields, such as political fields as well as the religious field, artistic field, legal field and economic field among others. Each field, dedicated to a specific type of activity, is relatively autonomous, has its own specific governing rules and is led by actors or groups (i.e., elites) who possess a certain type of capital (e.g., political, economic, social, religious, scientific, etc.) and recognition. Owing to their capital and recognition, elites have the prerogative of providing the legitimate interpretation of actions, practices and representations in specific areas of activity, rationalizing and systematizing them in the form of explicit norms.

Put simply, a field is an arena of struggles for positions and resources within which the actors and groups think, act and take positions. The outcome of these struggles depends upon the volume and structure of the capital of actors and groups. In these struggles, each actor or group aspires to preserve or increase their position and resources in their respective field. Actors who are relatively well established in the field have a certain interest in preserving or strengthening the established order, while newcomers use strategies aimed at undermining the status quo, which is often unfavorable to them. Sometimes, actors situated in a specific position within a given field may enter into alliances with the actors who hold a homologous (similar) position in another field or in the general social structure. However, the established actors enjoy greater opportunities to preserve the status quo than newcomers given their symbolic capital, which grants them legitimacy to secure a monopoly in their field. Fields are thus characterized by struggles and alliances that continuously mold the internal power balances (Hilgers & Mangez, 2014).

The above considerations imply that each actor involved in a given field has a certain agency vis-à-vis the other actors. Our understanding of agency is informed by Emirbayer and Mische’s (1998, p. 963) conceptualization of human agency as the “temporary embedded engagement by actors of different structural environments through the interplay of habit, imagination, and judgment which both reproduces and transforms those structures in interactive response to the problems posed by changing situations.” Our understanding also relies on Sewell’s (1992, p. 20) definition of human agency: “To be an agent means to be capable of exerting some degree of control over the social relations in which one is enmeshed, which in turn implies the ability to transform those social relations to some degree.” This conceptualization of human agency implies that the action and practices of individuals are in a constant and mutually transforming interaction with the existing social structures, which in turn simultaneously shape the possibilities and limitations of individual agency. This implies that migrants experience varying degrees of agency as they move across multiple migration arenas (fields) with their own inner orders and different power geometries.

Thus, armed with Ehrlich’s living law perspective and Bourdieu’s social fields theory, we infer that we cannot satisfactorily understand immigration policymaking and migrants’ experiences without considering the informal regulatory practices, struggles and alliances that occur in different social arenas (fields/associations) pertaining to migration, which in this book we call “migration arenas.” While acknowledging the importance of existing migration regime typologies, we propose that it might be more productive to focus comparative efforts on the study of migrants’ agency in multiple migration arenas. This approach is particularly useful in the context of nondemocratic regimes. As we stated earlier, migration governance processes in nondemocratic contexts are shaped by the informal power structures and extralegal negotiations, which often lead to a significant gap between policy design and implementation. The core argument is that when comparing migration processes in nondemocratic contexts, we should move beyond the analysis of formal migration policies and laws, thereby focus on migration outcomes (what actually happens on the ground). This lens can be achieved by examining struggles, alliances and interactions in various migration arenas. These migration arenas may include, but are not limited to, such social fields or associations as (1) the documentation and legalization regime; (2) the labor market surrounding migrant labor; (3) intermediaries; (4) the immigration law enforcement regime; (5) migrants’ inner lifeworlds and social networks, transnational practices, solidarity and social safety nets; (6) street institutions; and (7) religious institutions among others.

This book relies on a multisited transnational ethnography of Central Asian migrant workers in Moscow, Russia and Istanbul, Turkey, conducted between January 2014 and January 2022. The fieldwork in Moscow took place over a total of 15 months from January 2014 through November 2019, whereas the fieldwork in Istanbul took place between January 2019 and January 2022. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions, we were able to make six fieldwork trips to Istanbul between July 2020 and January 2022. This allowed us to gain unique insights into migrants’ lives in Istanbul during the pandemic. Given the strict travel restrictions to Russia, we were forced to limit our data collection to online interviews through social media applications. These field sites were chosen for several reasons. Moscow is the capital city and largest megapolis in Russia, featuring the highest number of migrant workers. Therefore, Moscow’s attitudes and policies regarding labor migration greatly influence developments in other regions of Russia, where local officials, politicians and journalists reproduce Moscow’s policies in their home territory (Abashin, 2016; Schenk, 2018). Likewise, we chose Istanbul because it is the largest megapolis and primary migration hub in Turkey, hosting more than half of the country’s migrant population (Düvell, 2020; İçduygu & Aksel, 2015).

Both of us (the co-authors) have extensive expertise in conducting fieldwork on migration. We speak Uzbek, Russian, Turkish and other Central Asian languages (Kyrgyz and Turkmen), are originally from Uzbekistan, understand Central Asian culture and have spent lengthy time periods conducting research and fieldwork in Russia, Turkey and Uzbekistan on migration. Drawing from our unique “ethnographic toolkit” (Reyes, 2020), we gained access to the Central Asian migrant worker communities in Moscow and Istanbul. In addition, a significant proportion of the migrants we interviewed in Istanbul had previously worked in Moscow. Thus, owing to their previous migration experiences in Russia, many of our informants in Istanbul were able to compare the Russian and Turkish migration regimes based on their individual experiences of the law, labor market and host society, thus providing a collection of unique narratives that led us to write about Central Asian migrant networks in Istanbul and Moscow (Fig. 1.2).

The ethnographic material was primarily collected through observations, informal interviews, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews, supplemented by regular contact with informants using smartphone-based instant messaging applications such as Telegram Messenger, WhatsApp and IMO. Our observations frequently turned into informal chats and interviews owing to the numerous questions that arose on the spur of the moment. The interviews were conducted in the Uzbek, Russian, Turkish, Turkmen and Kyrgyz languages. Rigorous procedures and techniques for collecting data were applied: observation and informal interviews were documented in field diaries in addition to audio recordings. We also utilized digital data collection strategies by maintaining regular contact with migrants via smartphone-based social media applications, allowing us to observe the developments in their lives when we were away from our field sites. During our fieldwork, we applied various data collection strategies, which included participating in migrants’ daily lives; renting mattress space in shared apartments where migrants lived; being present at migrants’ workplaces at different times; observing migrants’ negotiations with employers, landlords and intermediaries; accompanying migrants on the streets and via public transportation where they are often stopped by police officers; inviting migrants to lunch or dinner in cafés; and “hanging out” with them in bars.

In Moscow, we conducted 10 focus group interview discussions and 130 semi-structured interviews with Central Asian (Kyrgyz, Tajik and Uzbek) migrant workers. The interviews and observations were carried out at construction sites, bazaars, dachas (cottages), farms, dormitories, shared apartments, cafés, railway stations and on the streets of Moscow, where Uzbek and other Central Asian migrants work, live and socialize. In Istanbul, we collected rich empirical data through observations, 10 focus group discussions and 85 semi-structured interviews with Central Asian migrants (Kyrgyz, Turkmens, Uzbeks and Uzbeks from northern Afghanistan). Our interviews and observations took place at cafés, bars, shared apartments, sweatshops, hotels, shopping centers and on the streets of Istanbul. Unlike in Moscow where migrants are dispersed across different parts of the city, in Istanbul, Central Asian migrants have their own enclave in the Kumkapi neighborhood. Therefore, as a part of the data collection strategy, we frequently visited Kumkapi, where the majority of Central Asian migrants live, work and socialize.

During our fieldwork, we sought to understand how migration policies and laws work on the ground. To do so, we focused on migrants’ experiences in different social arenas and situations: (1) the migrant labor market and working conditions; (2) immigration laws, policies and sanctions, such as work permit and residence registration, deportations and entry bans; (3) intermediaries in labor, document and housing issues; (4) migrants’ encounters with the host country’s legal system, such as immigration officials, the police, courts and border guards; (5) migrants’ encounters with informal channels and street institutions; (6) migrant networks, transnational practices, informal coping strategies, legal culture and traditions, solidarity and social safety nets; and (7) religious institutions and practices. We conducted face-to-face interviews relying on a conversational process, which lasted from 35 minutes to up to two hours. In some cases, we also conducted follow-up interviews in order to gather additional information on informants’ experiences. In selecting migrants for our study, we paid special attention to diversity across age, gender, social status, occupation, educational background, legal status and migration experiences (experienced or newly arrived migrant). In terms of sampling, we used random, snowball and purposive sampling techniques to increase the diversity of our informants. To reflect the gender composition of the Uzbek migrant populations in Russia and Turkey, male migrants constituted the majority of our informants in Moscow, while in Istanbul, most informants were female migrants (Fig. 1.3).

During our fieldwork, research participants were fully informed about the purpose and methods of our research project. To ensure maximum anonymity, the names and whereabouts of all informants have been changed, and only the most generic information about the informants and fieldwork sites are provided. As we mentioned earlier, our dual identity (researchers with an Uzbek background) significantly shaped our access to participants, data and fieldwork sites, a social position which requires some reflection regarding how these characteristics influenced the fieldwork dynamics (Wasserfall, 1993). While acknowledging that there is no completely neutral or objective knowledge (Ritchie et al., 2013), we nevertheless tried to avoid obvious and conscious bias by attempting to be as neutral as possible when collecting, interpreting and presenting our data and analysis. During our field research, we occupied multiple statuses (Merton, 1972), experiencing both “insider moments” with participants (May, 2014) and assuming the position of the “outsider within” (Zempi & Awan, 2017). We were “insiders” when we approached informants through a mutual contact or gatekeeper who enjoyed their trust. Being accepted as insiders enabled us to gain easy access to migrants’ everyday lives. At times, when we approached informants without a mutual contact or a proper introduction, we were “outsiders,” viewed as two strangers (e.g., agents of Uzbekistan’s State Security Service) collecting information about migrants. This was due to the fact that our informants (migrants) originate from Central Asian countries with authoritarian and repressive political regimes. We are aware that our fluid identity, sliding between the “insider” and “outsider” positions, may have influenced the content of our interview data. We are also aware that our gender (both authors are male) may have affected our interactions with female and male migrants differently. However, given that we conducted a large number of interviews with both male and female migrants and relied on different data collection strategies, we were able to cross-check and triangulate different datasets.

Perhaps noted from previous sections, we use a variety of terms and concepts that require clarification and definition. First, the term “migration regime” is frequently used in this book. Currently, no consensus among migration studies scholars provides a definition of “migration regime.” Herein, in line with most migration scholars (Boucher & Gest, 2015; Horvath et al., 2017), we rely on Krasner’s (1982, p. 185) definition of regimes as “principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area.” Thus, we use the term “migration regime” to refer to the sum or totality of a country’s migration policies, laws and regulations, alongside their actual implementation on the ground as manifested in the workings of state officials responsible for migration management, in the practices of employers and migration intermediaries and in the experiences of migrant workers. This definition allows us to apply the term “migration regime” to a specific country, such as, for example, Russia or Turkey.

We must also define terms in relation to noncitizens and their legal statuses. We use the terms migrant (or migration) and immigrant (or immigration) interchangeably, given that the distinction between a permanent and temporary stay has become blurred in an increasingly transnationalized world. In relation to one’s legal status, we use undocumented to describe people living or working in a foreign country without the documents prescribed by the host country’s laws. In keeping with Kubal (2013), we refrain from using the term illegal migrants because of its stigmatizing and politicized nature.

Chapter 2 comparatively analyzes immigration laws and policies developed by Russian and Turkish authorities over the last three decades, discussing the differences and commonalities between Russian and Turkish migration regimes. We provide an overview of historical events and factors that shaped the current immigration policies of the two countries. In particular, we demonstrate how better economic opportunities, the existence of sociocultural links and relatively liberal immigration regimes attracted millions of migrants to find employment in Russia and Turkey. We also show that Russian and Turkish immigration laws and policies have produced unintended consequences, namely a significant gap between migration policies and laws (migration outputs) and their actual implementation on the ground (migration outcomes). Given complicated legalization procedures, the authorities’ tacit acceptance of legally unprotected and cheap migrant labor, along with legal uncertainties, many migrants resort to working in the informal economies, where they can work without documents. Chapter 2 concludes by arguing for the need to consider these peculiarities when comparing the Russian and Turkish migration regimes, manifested in the workings of state officials responsible for migration management, in the practices of employers and migration intermediaries and in the experiences of migrant workers.

Chapter 3 focuses on migrants’ internal lifeworlds, social networks and transnational practices as a migration arena. In this arena, migrants build their own parallel world based on its own legal order, information channels, social safety nets and networks of trust and reciprocity. These processes will be illustrated through the case study of Uzbek migrant workers upon which the empirical data and analysis focus. Comparing Central Asian migrants’ experiences in Moscow and Istanbul, we describe the importance of patterns of residence, transnational communications, social networks and a shared sense of “the rules of the game” in migrants’ life trajectories in the host society. These migrant lifeworlds regulate contractual relationships and obligations among migrants, exerting an identifiable impact on the outcomes of many practices that migrants (and other actors) employ while in Moscow and Istanbul.

Next, in Chapter 4, we examine migrants’ experiences with the documentation and legalization regime as a key migration arena. This chapter is divided into two sections. The first section explores how the laws and regulations governing residency and employment of foreign nationals in Russia and Turkey are interpreted, enforced, followed and negotiated during encounters with state officials, employers, intermediaries and migrant workers. The second section presents our results from observations, informal interviews and focus group discussions in addition to semi-structured interviews with migrant workers focusing on migrants’ daily interactions with judges, police officers, migration service officials, tax agency officials and border guards.

Chapter 5 investigates the migrant labor markets in Russia and Turkey as migration arenas, focusing on the daily interactions, struggles and alliances among employers, intermediaries and migrant workers. Here, we also focus on the gendered experiences of these processes in two migration regimes. These processes will be described through a “thick description” of Central Asian migrants’ daily lives and experiences in the Russian and Turkish migrant labor markets.

In Chapter 6, we focus on the “shadow economy and street” as a migration arena, examining migrants’ encounters with street institutions and non-state actors in Moscow and Istanbul. Our emphasis on the “street” as a separate arena of migration is motivated by the understanding that a large proportion of Central Asian migrants operate in the informal economies both in Moscow and in Istanbul, an informal lifeworld associated with a high incidence of wage theft, trafficking, exploitation, fraud, robbery, sexual abuse, violence and other risks. Under these conditions, migrants may seek redress from street institutions and non-state actors when faced with risks, threats and uncertainties. Here, we describe these processes through the life histories of two female Uzbek migrants (Leyla and Zarina) and one male Uzbek migrant (Shurik), three migrants who worked in Moscow and Istanbul between 2011 and 2022.

Finally, Chapter 7, the concluding chapter brings together the primary empirical and theoretical findings from previous chapters, allowing us to consider them against the theoretical framework outlined in this introduction. Here, we discuss our key findings, our contributions to the study of migration regime debates and potential avenues for future research. The distinct theoretical framework developed in the Russian and Turkish contexts is placed within the broader comparative migration studies scholarship, and we discuss its relevance and the scope of applicability to the study of migration regimes in other contexts.