SECTION: Humanities
SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATION:
European University at Saint-Petersburg
REPORT FORM:
«Oral report»
AUTHOR(S)
OF THE REPORT:
Shatokhina Liubava
SPEAKER:
Shatokhina Liubava
REPORT TITLE:
Russian Programmers in Finland between Professional Self-Presentations and Lifestyle Narratives
TALKING POINTS:

Information and communication technology (ICT) specialists tend to be among the most spatially mobile groups in the contemporary global labor market. My presentation will deal with a specific case of Finland becoming the destination country for Russian programmers. I will argue that in the case of Russian-speaking programmers relocating to Finland it is hardly possible to separate career-path (career builders) from lifestyle preferences (quality of life seekers) as main migration motives. The two, in fact, are very much interconnected and mutually stipulating. Interviews with Russian ICT relocated to Finland show that quality of life incentives are the most frequent and best-articulated factors in their migration stories. At the same time, given their intangibility and inherence in larger identity building processes, these factors are not easily defined and can only be traced and interpreted through the narratives of relocation produced by these people as they try to make sense of their experience. My aim is precisely that: to discover and analyze the values, identities and self-presentations technics actively incorporated into these migration stories, with special attention to quality of life images.