MIGRATION AS A SOCIAL RESOURCE OF TERRITORIAL COMMUNITY

Abstract

In the modern globalized world migration shows a stable progressing nature which explains the academic interest in this complex, controversial phenomenon. The complexity of migration processes gives rise to new discourses, and a new research area where migration is studied as a social resource, a channel to replenish human resources in the declining regions of the Russian Federation. Data obtained in a complex sociological study performed within the framework of RFFI grant #19-411-340002 “Territorial communities in social transformation: a sociological and managerial analysis” permitted considering migration as a social resource. The research team of the Volgograd Institute of management, a branch of RANEPA, used a combined strategy that includes both quantitative (mass survey of citizens and rural residents) and qualitative methods of empirical study. The former were mass surveys of urban and country residents, the latter - in-depth interviews of experts and representatives of territorial local governing bodies, the academic community, urban and country activists, architects, leaders of property owner associations, long term residents of territorial communities. The obtained data allowed revealing the potential of migration in terms of partial compensation for the declining population of the Volgograd region, replenishing human resources and labor force, preservation and development of regional territories, building solidary ties between the local population and migrants. Migration has both positive and negative implications; the objective, inevitable nature of migration brings to the fore a need for optimal, effective methods of management at all levels of the social system. Social and ethnic agreement between migrants and the receiving population in territorial communities can be only possible when life in a region is well regulated, its municipal structures and local communities function properly, and the traditions and culture of all people residing here are respected.