Osadchaya G., Kireev E., Kiseleva E., Chernikova A. The Adaptive Capacity Of Young Migrants From Kyrgyzstan In Moscow. Central Asia and the Caucasus. 2021. Vol. 24. No. 4. Pp. 126-139.

Abstract

A significant number of migrants from Kyrgyzstan in Moscow and the difficulties of their adaptation, recorded by our research, actualize the study of the adaptive potential of young Kyrgyzstanis. The lack of scientific knowledge about the adaptation potential of various groups of Kyrgyz youth does not allow creating the necessary conditions for their assimilation of norms, values, rules of behavior, which creates conflict in Moscow society, reduces the comfort of a migrant's life, complicates integration processes in the EAEU. The purpose of this study is to characterize the adaptive potential of Kyrgyz youth, which allows migrants who have come to Moscow to master a new social space, to overcome discomfort from the contradictory social context and unusual living conditions. The analysis is based on empirical data obtained in the course of structured interviews of 823 Kyrgyz migrants aged 17-30, conducted in 2020. The novelty of the research lies in the systemic examination and comprehensive assessment of the potential for social adaptation of a given social community, since so far only certain aspects of this phenomenon have been considered in publications. The adaptive potential in the article is understood as a set of individual characteristics that ensure the inclusion of newcomers in the host society, a change in previous norms, patterns of behavior and the socialization of new images that are formed in the process of interaction with new socio-cultural conditions and represent the resultant adaptive abilities of the individual and adaptive environmental conditions in their interaction ... The adaptive potential of a person is analyzed through the characteristics of expectations, perceptions, social attitudes; the level of empathy, the degree of openness and complementarity in relation to the host society; tolerance for people of a different nationality, identity. The article reveals the assessment by migrants of the adaptive potential of the environment as a result of the coordination, coherence and benevolence of the actions of all interested parties: the authorities, employers, the local population. Associations arising in the migrant with respect to Russia are also analyzed. The influence of the adaptive potential on the attitude to integration processes in the EAEU is revealed. It is proved that the activity of young migrants, their assessments of social reality are largely determined by their ideas about what the nature of their interaction with Muscovites should be, how they should harmoniously adapt to the new environment: whether through assimilation, adaptation in the logic of biculturalism, separation. The adaptive attitudes and strategies of young Kyrgyzstanis consist either in marginalization in Moscow society, or in complementarity, or in the assimilation of dominant norms. The choice of this or that strategy to a large extent characterizes the adaptive potential of migrants. The study allows us to conclude that it is necessary to develop special measures by the Eurasian Economic Commission, social institutions of Russia and Kyrgyzstan to improve interaction between migrants and the host society, to create conditions for adaptation, to search for appropriate tools and mechanisms. Its results create conditions for the development of the theory of social adaptation of migrants, for empirical studies of migration processes in the post-Soviet space, for understanding the features of social adaptation of young citizens of Kyrgyzstan.