Methodological considerations\ Selection of data

Which methods to use for collecting relevant data very much depends on the research questions that are posed. When asking what a state wants in a field of policy, I found it reasonable to address textual material where such objectives may be traced. A state has established ways of expressing its aims and wishes; that is in written policy concepts as well as in statements from the state‟s representatives as communicated through different media. A state‟s wishes, as one would think, should also, at least partly, be displayed in the actions of the state, which in a way coincide with my second question; how does the state go about to achieve its aims? Searching for an understanding of this, I found it necessary to address policies as they are reflected in the implemented body of laws. The state‟s institutional set up is also relevant within this question, and here I attach importance to the evaluation of non-state managers of migration, as well as other researchers‟ and the FMS‟s own co-workers‟

account. To answer the third question posed; what are the side effects, problems and insufficiencies of state policy? I found it equally necessary to speak with people who are relating closely to the state management of migration in Russia; that being various non-state managers, migration researchers and the state itself. Therefore, as the questions posed implies, I in this thesis draw on quite a wide range of data, which are collected through different methods.

In addition to semi-structured interviews done between 15.04.2011 and 25.10.2011, I draw on original law texts, state policy concepts, official speeches, newspaper articles and web-sites. I have worked through two bodies of research literature; one for theoretical approaches to the above thesis and the other relating to the empirical investigation of the research questions yet to come.

Early in the research process I attempted to do a mapping of actors involved in migration management in Russia. This included research groups preoccupied with migration issues. Most of the migration researchers, whose material I was able to locate, as it turned out, are working at or affiliated with one of the following institutions: The Russian Academy of Science, The Moscow State University, The high school of Economics, the Centre for Migration Research in Moscow or the Centre for Independent Social Research in St.

Petersburg. Some of them are members of the Public or the Expert Council of the Federal Migration Service, which I later will elaborate on, and as such they are interacting directly with the state and representatives of different migration related organizations. Among the

27 researchers that I refer to the most, I found no views that stood out as especially conflicting. It rather appeared as if they often shared some general views and criticism of the state

management and the Russian state‟s need for immigration as proven from the demographical data referred to in the introduction chapter above.

As mentioned, this thesis contains two main empirical chapters. In Chapter 3, on state management, I draw much on former research done by migration researchers in Russia, who have followed Russian state measures in the field of migration over the years. This body of literature I complement with my own analyses of law texts, state concepts and other primary sources; among them an expert interview with a well known migration researcher and an interview with the Federal Migration Service‟s Department of Organization and Analysis. I thus use both primary and secondary sources when discussing the state‟s management of labour migration from Central Asia.

In chapter 4, I draw on my own interviews, the websites of my informants`

organizations or firms, and a few relevant newspaper articles. This second empirical chapter has two functions. Firstly, it substantiates the previous chapter by the fact that my informants confirm and elaborate further on already mentioned critiques of the state management. As such, this is intended to provide reliability to my overall analysis. Secondly, this chapter has a narrative of its own, which further investigates the side-effects and insufficiencies of the state management. This has to do with the very existence of the non-state managers of migration and their activities. The chapter does not so much go into the question of what the state wants, as into what would be a preferential development of state policy as the interviewees see it.

Much of the data used in this thesis is Russian language material, and the translations are mine. Sometimes, when using quotations, I have chosen to give the original text in a footnote, especially when quoting official documents. Other times I only provide selected Russian expressions in brackets where I find that this would benefit a Russian speaking reader. If the flow or freshness of the original quotations sometimes gets lost in translation, this is a conscious sacrifice for the sake of text availability. When it comes to the

transcription of Russian proper names and titles, I consistently use the British standard, except from the Russian letter `ы` that I reproduce with an `y` not an `ȳ`.

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2.3.1 Interviews as a way of collecting empirical data.

Semi-structured interviews constitute for parts of my empirical data, which, as I stated are combined with textual analysis. For the purpose of this thesis, the overall focus of which is the state management, I found it relevant as well to investigate what other actors are involved in the management of labour migration on an institutional level. As I was interested in these actors` interactions with the state and their views on the state management, the only way to collect such information was by meeting with them. Labour migration from Central Asia to Russia is very much a present day phenomenon, and policy changes have occurred quite recently. Through the interviews I got the possibility to check the information I had already collected; whether changes had occurred in the state‟s migration management of which I was not aware. I also got a chance to verify my understanding of the regulations.

Moreover, the research literature I had been able to locate did not provide in-debt information on the non-state migration managers, and I aimed for an understanding of their role in light of the state management. Through my informants I was also able to get more updated

perceptions of the state management and its concrete regulations than former studies could provide.

The decision to interview representatives of organizations and not the actual labour migrants derived from the thought that these representatives work with both labour migrants, the relevant state institutions and migration issues on a daily bases, and that they have hands-on knowledge with a large scope of most aspects of the migrants‟ experiences. In other words;

the non-state managers of migration have through their work acquired knowledge of labour migrant‟s situation in Russia, and of the state institutions and their functioning, which let them generalise and point out frequent problems and insufficiencies in the way the state handles migration.

A semi structured interview is characterized by a relatively informal style, which can be described more as “a conversation or discussion rather than a formal question and answer format” (Mason: 2002, 62). This kind of interviews is thematic, topic-centred, and the researcher has a list of topics or starting points for discussion that he would like to touch upon. Conducting my interviews, except from those with migration researchers, I had a two-sided agenda. On one side, I was interested in the activity of the actual migration manager; the organization, association or firm with whom I was conducting the interview. On the other hand, I was interested in the migration managers` interaction with the state, as well as their

29 views on the state management. Although my informants represent institutions, they are of course at the same time individuals with personal opinions. Thus, when they give policy recommendations, these should be perceived as what they are – individual perceptions. As I see it, this does not make them less interesting in this context where they offer some wider perspectives on the present state management.

With the informants‟ permission most of the interviews were tape recorded, and I had no impression that the presence of the tape-recorder had a negative impact on the interviews or that the informants felt constrained in any way because of it. Its presence rather seemed to be quickly forgotten. The reason for using a tape recorder was that I was conducting all the interviews in Russian. In order to devote my full focus on follow-up questions and my own formulations of these, I found it reassuring to be able to return to the actual answers of my informants on tape. None of the recordings have been fully transcribed, however. I chose to make a rough translation into English of the whole interviews in order to have a content overview for subsequent close reading of the material. Sequences that I found had particular significance, or sequences where I was “interested in the ways in which people articulate their ideas, not just in the substance of what they say” (Mason: 2002, 78) were marked so that I could easily return to them on the tape to verify and improve my translation in case I decided to give a direct quote. Most of the interviews lasted about one hour, but there were variations stretching from 40 minutes to two hours.

All of my interviews took place on the premises of the actual organization which interviewees worked for. Only once I had a particular challenging job in turning the interview into a useful conversation. This was when my informant unexpectedly had guessed that I knew and had already met with another organization with which he had a bad relationship. As he associated me with this other organization, he immediately concluded that I had taken their party and hence was against him and his activities. This very much coloured the start phase of the interview when the informant felt a strong need to defend himself and his organization, while I was taken by surprise by the unexpected hostile rhetoric against the other

organization. However, when I managed to turn the focus towards my main interest - the state, a more normalized conversation could take place. None of my informants asked to be made anonymous, and only once did an informant clearly express that he did not want to put what he had said into print under his name. Such requests were certainly followed.

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3 The Russian state as a migration