Ethnicity as a tool and nationalities policy as practice: the case of Stavropol krai

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article examines contemporary nationalities policy in Russia, based on a case study of Stavropol krai in the northern Caucasus. In order to reveal the informal mechanisms of nationalities policy this research analyses the practices of the ethnic group-making used by the regional bureaucracy. The key argument is that the ethnic divisions, rather than being embedded within the society as everyday social categorizations, are imposed by the bureaucracy in order to make social space more transparent and manageable. The resulting use of ethnicity as a political tool has much in common with the Soviet approach in this field. However, unlike the Soviet nationalities policy, in today’s Russia ethnicity is not pervasive, and the nationalities policy as described is directed only at a small share of the population.