Between “Western” racism and (Soviet) national binarism: Migrants’ and nonmigrants’ ways of ordering Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad

Abstract

Abstract In Kaliningrad (and elsewhere in Russia), migrants and nonmigrants are often connected to places far beyond the state’s borders. In this article, I argue that two divergent transnational phenomena are at stake when investigating racism in Kaliningrad: firstly, ongoing conflicts between Russia and the “West” and, secondly, the almost globally perceived threat of Islam. The first aspect accounts for strengthening Russian nationalism and even more the old Soviet empire, which implies including one’s own (Muslim) migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus. The second aspect, however, encompasses a broader perception of “whiteness” by seeing Muslims generally as a threat of “white” civilization. Nonetheless, this article demonstrates that binary concepts of “black” and “white” are not as fixed and hardened as they might appear at first because those people investigated here generally conceptualize themselves and the city they live in as being tolerant, which is also explained by the Soviet legacy of seeing racism only outside of one’s own cosmos.