Resilient Migration: Feedback Mechanisms and Transnational Persistence in the Central Asia-Russia Corridor How the Internal Dynamics of Migration Processes Sustained Movement After the 2014-2015 Rouble Crisis

Sammanfattning

This thesis investigates the resilience of labour migration from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to Russia in the aftermath of the 2014-2015 rouble crisis, despite a significant deterioration in economic incentives. In addition to addressing this empirical puzzle, the study is motivated by the need for deeper theorization of migration persistence, employing an adapted version of Hein de Haas’s (2010) theory of internal migration dynamics. Drawing on secondary ethnographic sources, the analysis is structured through a selective mini-case design. Each of the three cases contributes conceptual axioms which, in synthesis, illuminate a broader process through which multiple interlocking dynamics generate migration system resilience. These mechanisms operate across economic, social, and symbolic domains, generating feedback loops that distort absolute short-term economic rationality and help explain continued migration despite adverse conditions. What initially appears as surprising continuity in migration flows becomes intelligible when seen through the lens of self-perpetuating dynamics, social filtering, and symbolic investments that bind migrants to informal commitments and reputational structures. The findings should not be read as definitive, but as an exploratory and theoretically anchored attempt to trace how feedback mechanisms and embedded expectations contribute to system-level resilience, offering a foundation for further research.