Research on public opinion about migrants in contemporary Russia: Supply of nation-building or demand for national pride?

Abstract

The article compares the heuristic potential of two contexts for empirical studies of studies and theoretical analysis of the public opinion on migrants in the contemporary Russia. It states that in the contemporary Russian, same as in European, migration studies this issue appears primarily in the context of nation-building. As a result, the research on representa- tions of migrants in mass consciousness is often reduced to studies of attitudes to- wards migrants as more or less tolerant. Attitudes towards migrants therefore appear not so much as an independent research subject of its own interest as an indicator of the degree of success of the Russian modernization. In the author’s opinion, such an approach to studying attitudes towards migrants from the supply side re- ferring to various models of nation-building considers only the cognitive side of nation- al identity while disregarding its emotional and motivational resources. It should be therefore augmented with an approach from side of demand for positive identity manifesting itself as socially shared feeling of national pride. At the same time, the feeling of national pride may be related to attitudes towards migrants in various ways depending on specific grounds for pride and country-specific circumstances, which can change and even be changed on purpose.