From Village to City and Back: Translocal Networks of Internal Migrants as a Driver of Socio-Economic Convergence Between Regional Centers and Peripheries A Case Study of Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk
Abstract
The article examines translocal networks of internal migrants in Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk that connect the city and the countryside. Drawing on five focus groups and twenty semi-structured interviews with individuals who moved to these regional centers from small rural settlements, we explore how such networks are formed, maintained, and what social effects they produce. We identify two key dynamics: on the one hand, increased economic and emotional resilience of migrants; on the other, enhanced sustainability of rural communities. This mutual dependence leads to a process of socio-economic convergence between urban and rural areas. The horizontal networks described by our respondents facilitate the continuous movement of resources and information between city and village. In the early stages, products, money, social capital, and emotional support flow from the countryside to the city. The principle of reciprocity, characteristic of this type of relationship, results in a reversal of flow over time: as the migrant becomes embedded in urban infrastructural and social networks, resources begin to move in the opposite direction. Often, the resources coming from the village shift in meaning—from economic to symbolic: gift exchange becomes a means of sustaining group cohesion, with some members remaining in the place of origin and others now residing in the regional center. As a result, the social, economic, and cultural distance separating these two types of settlements gradually diminishes, and some of its negative consequences are mitigated. In conclusion, we propose a consequential hypothesis: translocal networks of rural migrants contribute to reducing the negative effects of outmigration for Siberian villages by partially bridging the infrastructural and economic gap between regional centers and the periphery.
