Mobility and Flexible Moralities

Abstract

The majority of the estimated 150,000 Vietnamese in Russia are irregular migrants with no prospects for permanent settlement or naturalisation. Post-communist Russia, with a volatile economy, a restrictive (and heavily corrupt) migration regime and disturbing levels of hostility towards foreign migrants, proves to be a particularly unwelcoming host society. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted at Moscow wholesale markets between 2013 and 2016, this chapter discusses how meanings and values of money change in a context people’s radius of trust is disrupted by their physical displacement and the routinisation of uncertainty. When moral grounds for social interactions cannot be taken for granted, money emerges as a new ‘anchor’ in and benchmark for transnational relationships.