Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Prior to the collapse of communism, thousands of Vietnamese migrants had arrived in the USSR through various programs that showed cooperation and socialist solidarity. Following the collapse of the USSR, many of these former contract workers and international students have engaged in wholesaling and retailing businesses all over Russia. In large markets in Moscow, the presence of a diverse group of people that play a key role in the post-socialist economic development has turned these markets into transnational social spaces that are transnationally linked in a geographical and socio-cultural sense. Yet, there is also a tension between the locals in the areas surrounding the markets and the migrants who works in these markets. Thus, these transnational social spaces are highly contested and require constant negotiation between different groups. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in two markets in Moscow, Russia, the Moscow Trading Center (ТЯК Москва) and the Sadovod Trade Center (ТК Садовод), this paper addresses questions of negotiation of spaces between Vietnamese migrants and residents of the surrounding area and the spatial, social, and, economic continuities between the socialist past and the post-socialist present. Through the two lenses, the paper sheds light on the relevancy of the socialist migration routes and transnational ties on the contemporary migration and transnational practices.