Living as a Central Asian in Urban Russia in the Aftermath of the Crocus City Hall Attacks

This event will be hosted in hybrid format. RSVP to attend in person. Register for the Zoom meeting.

One of the major developments in 21st century Russia has been the rise of widespread mobility (often described as "labor migration") between post-Soviet Central Asia and Russia. These migratory patterns have led to a significant increase in racial diversity in Russia, but have also contributed to an increase in xenophobic and Islamophobic sentiments among the Russian population. On March 22, 2024, a deadly terrorist attack in Moscow led to the deaths of at least 137 people. The Russian state has detained four Tajiks suspected of carrying out this terror attack, and many news outlets have commented on a rise of xenophobic, Islamophobic, and racially-motivated hate crimes, as well as an increase in racialized policing of Central Asian migrants in urban Russia.

In this talk, Dr. Mariana Irby draws from long-term ethnographic fieldwork among Tajik migrant communities in Moscow and Saint Petersburg to explore how the aftermath of these attacks have shaped her interlocutors' perception of their place in Russia as racial minorities, the nature of their encounters with the state, and their views on building stable futures for themselves in the Russian Federation. 

Dr. Mariana Peixoto Irby is a postdoctoral fellow at NYU. Her research explores citizenship, borders, and the politics of difference in Russia and Central Asia. Drawing from 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Russia and Tajikistan, her current book project focuses on Tajik labor migration to and from Russia as a lens to explore race, ethno-nationalism, and postcoloniality in the former USSR. Alongside this research, she has also engaged in activist-led projects with Central Asian migrant communities in urban Russia. Mariana earned her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2024. Her research has been supported by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies and American Councils/State Department Title VIII.