ETHNICITY, MIGRATION, NATIONALISM
Ethnicity, migration, and nationalism in contemporary Russian society have been
research priorities at CISR from very early on. CISR researchers have participated in more
than 30 projects on these themes, seven of which were conducted in 2007-2008.
In the first decade of CISR's existence, themes such as extremist groups, ethnic
communities in the contemporary Russian city, and ethnic discrimination were common in
CISR research activity. Recently, these initiatives have been supplemented with new ones -
studies of the social context of the production and function of racist discourse. Research
interests in this area focus on the conceptualization of 'ethnicity' in political, educational,
scientific, and media discourse, and on discrimination connected to the use of ethnic terms.
Much attention has also been paid to investigation of migrants' everyday life and of how
they treat their own position in "host" and "home" societies/communities. Since 2007
research interests have begun to more actively focus on the process of (re)production of
civil identity and "Russian patriotism." Special attention is paid to civil education in Russian
schools and to comparative studies on practices for forming an "active social position."
Relevant PhD theses defended by CISR researchers are available at the Centre's library:
Mikhail Sokolov "Self-Presentation of Organization in the Russian Radical
Nationalist Movement" (St. Petersburg State University, 2003); Oleg Pachenkov
"Ethnic Economic Migrants: Transformation of Social Relationship (the case of migrants
from Azerbaijan and Tajikistan)" (St. Petersburg State University, 2009).