Proving that you are not a foreign agent: Notes on challenges of fieldwork in Russia

Last year from September to November, me and 5 research assistants collected qualitative and quantitative data for my PhD dissertation. The project is devoted to Central Asian migrant entrepreneurs in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Although previously I lived in Central Asia for several years and spoke a common language with participants, this fieldwork was more challenging than my previous ones. Reading papers of fellow scholars before the field trip, I got a general idea that data collection is not gonna be easy. However, the article that convinced me that everything is possible was the work of Victor Agadjanian and Natalia Zotova called “Structure, culture, and HIV/STI vulnerabilities among migrant women in Russia” (2019). The paper was devoted to sexual life and risks of sexually transmitted diseases among migrant (majority of whom were Muslim) women in Russia. The scholars simply approached potential respondents in their work places. Asking unfamiliar Muslim women to tell total strangers about “the number of sexual partners, having unprotected sex, and having sexual intercourse while inebriated” (Agadjanian and Zotova, 2019, p. 53)! My project was much easier I was sure. However, first days in the field proved me wrong; informal and sometimes illegal practices migrant entrepreneurs implemented seemed to be not less sensitive subject than sexual life of Muslim women. I was searching for respondents online as well as going directly to their business sites such as Uzbek cafes or Kyrgyz textile shops; in any case, I faced a high refusal rate. A friendly conversation at first, sometimes touching upon a family or other personal issues, was usually turning into an awkward moment of silence, unspoken suspicion and mistrust after I mentioned “a tiny little favour to participate in anonymous research”. Nevertheless, after two weeks of struggles, research assistants from respective ethnic communities joined the project which marked a turning point in data collection. Since then, our small team made mistakes, found solutions, shared our experiences and had multiple insights. What we learnt is that convincing a migrant entrepreneur to participate in research in Russia is a separate kind of art. It is an exercise in Zen Buddhism, Cicero’s rhetoric, and litigation in person, combined. Even though they risk to look self-evident to someone, below I would like to share some of my field notes on Russian environment-related challenges that a migration scholar may face during fieldwork in Russia. In fact, relevance of the notes may stretch beyond Russia across other post-Soviet countries as well as across social groups rather than migrant entrepreneurs.

1. Instability. If you are not a big fan of uncertainty, I have some bad news. In Russia, problems seem to pop out like mushrooms in the rain. This general instability of life reinforced by COVID-19-related turbulence often prevent respondents as well as researchers themselves from following their initial plans and keeping promises. Plans of participants may constantly change; a scholar has to adapt to these changes and stay flexible. There is no better way to get an eye twitch than creating a schedule of fieldwork activities that tightly follow one another. As a result, sometimes I had to chase a respondent for up to 10 days. A scholar had better love playing tag.

2. Fraud. Scammers ruined it for everyone. They call you on the phone, they come to your apartment, they stop you in the streets disguised as doctors, social workers, policemen, bank clerks as well as, alas, interviewers. Therefore, if a potential respondent has something to lose, for example, an apartment, money or a business, he will be sceptical about a stranger expressing a great deal of interest in his life path. And until the very end of the interview, he might be waiting for you to start trying to find out a PIN-code from his credit card. So, a scholar has to use all his creativity to persuade a respondent that there is no hidden agenda.

3. Unfamiliarity with research. If you have Imposter syndrome, I got more bad news. Hitting a nerve, your respondents can question usefulness and correctness of your study as well as doubt your intelligence. However, they don’t do it out of spite; the idea of sociological research and its purpose remain unclear to majority in Russia. In my opinion, there are at least three reasons for that. First, research activities at most universities are drastically underfunded. With a few sociological research projects being carried out, people could have never had a chance to be a respondent. Second, a link between universities as knowledge-producing entities and the government which is supposed to consume and utilise this knowledge is broken. Thus, even if there are some important findings reached by sociological research, they are believed not to be able to bring about positive change. And finally, even if the link between universities and the government was established, current domestic policies of the Russian government show little interest in improving life of ordinary people. “Ergo”, - a respondent may conclude, - “there is no sense to participate in your research”. A scholar has to prepare strong arguments to convince a respondent in capacities of research to make the world a better place.

4. Silence is golden. Instead of the described above reasoning, some respondents can use folk wisdom: silence is golden. Furthermore, there is no better reminder of how good it can be to keep quiet than an example of someone who didn’t. At first refusing to participate in research, one of my respondents provided as an argument a recent infamous event: a Belarusian standup comedian, Idrak Mirzalizade got deported from Russia because of his careless joke degrading Russia and ethnic Russians. Learning from mistakes of others, a scholar should leave his unconventional sense of humour at the Russian border with other forbidden items. Moreover, he should demonstrate a panoply of powerful means for protection of a respondent’s anonymity.

5. New Cold War. The current state of relations between the West and Russia is often described as a New Cold War that is unfolding in information space more than anywhere else. Thus, past as well as current state of international affairs can significantly affect how you and your research are seen by potential respondents. Political beliefs impact their readiness to participate in a study as well as their narratives. For instance, one of my respondents was convinced that I was a foreign agent with hidden agenda. Defending his new homeland, he praised life in Russia and called Putin “our common father”. In the end, he simply wondered: “Otherwise (an. - if I was not a foreign agent), why would a German university do such research?” This train of thought is partly explained by the point 3 of the current list. It comes handy if a scholar manages to carry along an undeniable proof of not being a foreign agent.

Hopefully, these field notes can be useful to fellow scholars. In order to provide a right impression, I have to note that fieldwork is unquestionably my favourite part of doing research in spite of the mentioned difficulties. Furthermore, I strongly believe that these difficulties when correctly approached can turn into an integral part of invaluable research findings.

References:

1. Agadjanian, V., and Zotova, N. (2019). Structure, Culture, and HIV/STI Vulnerabilities among Migrant Women in Russia. Immigration and Health (Advances in Medical Sociology), 19, pp. 47-67. https://doi.org/10.1108/ S1057-629020190000019003.