Migration and Indigeneity in the Russian Empire and the Post-Soviet Sphere: Geopolitical Migration Policies and Racialized Indigenous Populations

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Politicians in many nations have deemed migration policies the most pressing issue. This is accompanied by processes of othering, often targeting populations with migration experience and marginalized Indigenous groups. This panel analyzes instances of this trope from historical and present perspectives, using the Russian Empire, the post-Soviet sphere, and its global connections as examples.
The paper of Julia Golachowska analyzes the Polish Siberian deportation experience of the nineteenth century and connects it to a colonial gaze on indigenous populations. In the example of Ewa Felińska’s memoirs, the author shows how notions of whiteness and gender informed the perspective of Polish deportees on their Indigenous neighbors in exile. Anna Smelova investigates the research of Dina Brodskaia-Jochelson, who, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, organized an expedition to Siberia where she racialized and objectified Native Siberian women’s bodies – thus elevating her own status in academia. Jan Musekamp focuses on late nineteenth-century German-speaking emigrants from Ukraine who navigated geopolitical population policies, racialized borders, and settler colonialism on their way to Canada, Brazil, and other places. The author argues that we can speak of the emergence of global “colour lines” during this time – lines that remain largely in effect today. Kyilah Terry’s paper in turn looks at the geopolitical dimension of migration policies today. In the example of Belarus’ border with the European Union, she argues that we can speak of weaponized migration as an integral part of modern hybrid warfare.

Sub Unit

• History: 1800-1900

Chair

• Jesse Kauffman, Eastern Michigan U

Papers

• Between Racial Anthropology and Cultural Relativism: Dina Brodskaia-Jochelson’s 'Topographic Study' of Indigenous Siberian Women’s Bodies during the Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897–1902) - Anna Smelova, Georgetown U

• A Racist International?: Emigration Policies, Settler Colonialism, and 'Global Color Lines,' 1870-1900 - Jan Musekamp, German Historical Institute Warsaw (Poland)

• Coercion Capital: Migrant Supply for Strategic Ends - Kyilah Terry, U of Pennsylvania

Discussant

• Lewis Henry Siegelbaum, Michigan State U