‘Many Benefit from You Being Undocumented Here’: The Everyday Capabilities of Undocumented Immigrants in Moscow

Abstract

This critical ethnographic study was conducted among 15 immigrants originally from Caucasian and Central Asian countries, each with more than 10 years of undocumented residence in Moscow. It focuses on the everyday experiences of undocumented immigrants in a non-Western context, illustrating how informal networks, alongside official migration policies, contribute to and exploit unequal capabilities. The study emphasises the thresholds of emotions, affiliation and control over a person’s environment, demonstrating power asymmetries between individuals. Given the participants’ prolonged undocumented stay in Moscow, the findings demonstrate how the socio-legal context of an undocumented status facilitates informal exploitation alongside institutional operating models, aligning with migration policies in practice.

Keywords

• undocumented immigrants
• capability approach
• critical ethnography
• moscow
• immigration control
• informal