Urban Margins, Global Transitions: Everyday Security and Mobility in Four Russian Cities

In 2019 we began research on uneven development, marginality, security, and mobility in Russia in the project «Urban margins, global transitions: Everyday security and mobility in four Russian cities.” Our research was disrupted twice, first in 2020 by the global covid pandemic, and a second time in 2022 when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started. Adjusting to these unprecedented disruptions, we amended the original plans for the research. This opened new opportunities to do cutting edge research on immediate, ongoing changes within Russia. Objectives The aim of our research was to generate empirical data of high quality in four Russian cities. The data was to be used in case studies, comparative analyses, and contribute to conceptual and theoretical development on security, mobility, marginality, the post-socialist city, and global transitions. The research addressed academic debates on how to link global capitalist forces to national histories and local agencies. It generate grounded, empirical analysis and linked to debates about (global) structural dimensions that affect people’s everyday (urban) life. This approach was a result of the interdisciplinary background of the research, combining Russian area studies, urban studies, and international relations. How we carried out the research The cities included in the research represented different types of political economies and varied geographic locations. St. Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don represented ‘large city’-cases with developed urban economies, diverse employment opportunities, and cities seen as attractive to migrants. Zapolyarny, Nikel, and Tolyatti represented ‘mono-industrial cities’, or monotowns. They were selected because of experiences with the struggles of managing deindustrialization in the post-socialist period. Data collection started in 2019 and comprised field reports, observations, photos, and several phases of interviews. The planned field work was disrupted by the global covid pandemic in 2020 and later by the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. To adjust to this situation, the research team extended the collaboration with local research teams, who conducted interviews during the covid-pandemic in accordance with local covid-regulations. With the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Norwegian Research Council declared a force majeure and institutional research collaboration with Russia came to a full stop. At this stage of research, we had completed most but not all parts of the planned data collection in all cities. It was decided not to continue data collection as previously planned. In February 2023, one year after the start of the full-scale invasion, a new phase of data collection was initiated. It addressed individual experiences with the effects of the war in everyday life in Russia. It followed the spirit of the overall project objective of linking everyday perceptions and adaptations to large global shifts. This research documents and analyses emotional and practical responses to war in everyday life in Russia, including experiences with everyday resistance. Findings The research has generated original data on local experiences with societal, economic, and political developments in Russia. The issue of monotowns (drawing on research in Zapolyarny, Nikel and Tolyatti) has been closely examined in two articles, adding important sociological data to research on these towns in Russia. While the research has a specific setting and Russian context, the issues addressed in monotowns are common. They pertain to experiences of precarity and security in context of struggles with de-industrialization. These case studies contribute to a global comparative perspective on so-called ‘left behind places’ and bring ‘places-that-do-not matter’ into the conversation in Eastern European area-studies, international relations, and other fields. The research has generated differentiated insights and added substantial data on local perceptions of security related to geopolitical changes. With its comparative approach and nuanced sociological perspective, this research addresses conversations about how to make sense of local perceptions, state-society relations, and political economic developments in Russia. The research has developed expertise on systematic data collection under difficult circumstances. This is beneficial for research on Russia and adds competence in Norway on how to research Russia. The war affected the implementation and the publication of results from this research project. In addition to research results communicated in academic and non-academic publication outlets, several manuscripts (journal articles, book chapters, etc.) are under review as the project comes to an end. It is expected that there will be more to report on the results of this research in coming years.

The research project «Urban margins, global transitions: Everyday security and mobility in four Russian cities” (2019 – 2023) was significantly disrupted by the global covid pandemic in 2020 and the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This also opened a new opportunity to do cutting edge research on immediate, ongoing changes within Russia and affected the context for generating outcomes and making impact with our research. An outcome of these disruptions (covid, war) for participants in the research has been to adapt as a collective to these unprecedented events. As researchers we engaged in a series of pragmatic steps to put to work our ideas for field work amidst the difficulties of travel during covid. When the pandemic began in 2020, we paused and reflected jointly on the data collection, listened to the interviews we had already conducted, what insight they generated, and discussed in digital meetings how to move on with field work. This strengthened our network, the interdisciplinarity of our research, and developed our competence for collaborative fieldwork. To move on with high-quality field work during covid in an ethical manner, we conducted digital meetings with local researchers to determine the risks to local researchers and interviewees. An outcome of the efforts to nurture good relations with local research teams was an environment in which local researchers express concerns related to risks in their specific context. This increased competence in the team on working under uncertainty which typically require frequent communication, ethical awareness, and ability to anticipate risks. It also developed broader competency for data collection using digital tools and widened networks in Russia. With the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, field research abruptly ended, and the research community and wider society concentrated on the war. In the short-term, this generated opportunities for presenting the research to a variety of audiences, in and outside of academia. The experience with data collection under difficult circumstances contributes to discussions on how to continue research on ‘lived realities’ in Russia in context of war. It adds important ethnographic sensibility and context with its analysis of local experiences of security and marginality in the post-socialist context. Long-term impacts of this research can concern perceptions in wider society about life in Russia and how Russians make sense of social and political developments. The research focused on meaning-making and the understanding of multiplicity in assessing such developments. With its comparative approach and nuanced sociological perspective, it can contribute to conversations about how to make sense of local perceptions, state-society relations, and political economic developments in Russia. The research in that way impacts on high-priority areas in global and Norwegian policy debates.

In many Russian cities, people have taken to the streets in recent years to protest against a variety of political, social and economic developments. This includes welfare reform, environmental degradation and also the threat of losing jobs. These people’s struggles direct attention to how the post-socialist transition has produced uneven development, uncertainty and marginalization. In this project entitled “Urban Margins, Global Transitions: Everyday Security and Mobility in Four Russian Cities”, the objective is to investigate people’s experiences with security and mobility across four Russian cities and determine how local and global factors intersect to shape these experiences. Urban margins are usually associated with places such as the US ghetto, the French Banlieu or the slum in the city of the Global South. In post-socialist Russia, however, the urban margin is usually not a territorially delimited place. When migrants are stigmatised or city dwellers in single-industrial cities experience increasing precarity and uncertainty, they manouvre on the urban margins in Russia. In this project, these city dwellers' experiences are investigated across four cities selected as location of study: St. Petersburg, Rostov on Don, Tolyatti and Zapolyarniy. The project aims to produce new and differentiated insight on urbanisation and urban margins in Russia. A rigorous plan for data collection ensures insight on specific developments in Russian cities, but is also a basis on which these insights on the post-socialist city can be brought into dialogue with research on urban marginality in a global comparative perspective. This project’s research agenda is in this way relevant to the agenda expressed in the Sustainable Development Goals and the focus in goal 11 on sustainable, safe and resilient cities.