North Caucasian migrants in St. Petersburg: distinctive features of adaptation in a metropolis

Abstract

The article discusses the issue of migrants' adaptation in a metropolis, using the example of North Caucasian migration to St. Petersburg. We focus on the cultural aspects of adaptation using some of the approaches typical for John Berry's concept of acculturation strategies as well as the theories of segmented assimilation and transnationalism (translocality). The empirical basis of the article is a field study conducted in 2022. It was found that the cultural distance between the migrant sending and receiving communities and such features of urban culture as its heterogeneity, individualism, and individual autonomy significantly affect the processes of acculturation. The encounter with new cultural patterns is an important factor of migration shock. It also creates incentives for separation (the desire to withdraw into a familiar cultural environment) in first-generation migrants. It was also discovered that the integration strategy in this generation of migrants is mostly found among students. Acculturation also takes place through urban subcultures, in particular an Islamic one. The cultural specifics of the metropolis also determine the existence of an intergenerational gap between the first and the second generations of migrants. In the absence of systemic discrimination, the second generation of North Caucasian migrants perceives urban cultural patterns and organically integrates into them from their early childhood. Integration and assimilation are among the common acculturation strategies in this generation. Translocality characterizes North Caucasian migrants of any generation and influences acculturation processes. However, some of the migrants gradually become estranged from their migrant sending community, and it is its routines and norms, not those of the receiving community, that come to be seen as alien.