Migration and Hybrid Political Regimes

"This book not only provides a brilliant analysis of the under-researched Russian case but also significantly adds to the existing knowledge of undocumentedness, informality, and migrant agency."—Joaquín Arango, Professor of Sociology, Complutense University of Madrid

"Rustam Urinboyev’s empathetic and patient interviewing style has allowed him to shine a light on the complex social relationships, parallel legal orders, and behavioral norms that give shape and security to the lives of labor migrants in Moscow. This is a remarkable book, rich in stories of extraordinary people that are embedded in theoretical analysis."—Judith Pallot, University of Oxford and Research Director of GULAGECHOES, Aleksanteri Institute, Helsinki.

"Ethnographically rich and theoretically ambitious, Migration and Hybrid Political Regimes reveals the informal practices and extra-legal negotiations through which migrant workers, employers, middlemen and street-level bureaucrats negotiate the contemporary Russian migration system. An original and important contribution to our understanding of informality, agency, and legal adaptation in non-western migration regimes."—Madeleine Reeves, Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology, University of Manchester

“Urinboyev’s study makes a major contribution to scholarly understanding of the nature of informality and migration processes in Russia and similar regimes.  Through meticulous participant observation, Urinboyev shows how an informal regulatory system governs migrants’ labour, and how that system responds to the needs both of the authorities and of migrants’ themselves.”—Matthew Light, author of Fragile Migration Rights:  Freedom of Movement in Post-Soviet Russia