Labour, Mobility and Informal Practices in Russia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe

This book explores the daily survival strategies of people within the context of failed states, flourishing informal economies, legal uncertainty, increased mobility, and globalization, where many people, who are forced by the circumstances to be innovative and transnational, have found their niches outside formal processes and structures. The book provides a thorough theoretical introduction to the link between labour mobility and informality and comprises convincing case studies from a wide range of post-socialist countries. Overall, it highlights the importance of trust, transnational networks, and digital technologies in settings where the rules governing economic and social activities of mobile workers are often unclear and flexible.

Rano Turaeva is a senior scholar affiliated with the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich and an associated senior researcher at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle Saale in Germany

Rustamjon Urinboyev is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology of Law at Lund University and Senior Researcher in Russian and Eurasian Studies in the Aleksanteri Institute at University of Helsinki