Women crossing the borders

In 1990 the iron curtain between the East and the West came down, and in the Barents region the borders between Russia and the Nordic countries were opened. Since then many Russian citizens, especially women, have settled in the Nordic countries. Economic difficulties on the Russian side of the border are among the reasons for the migration. Today, Russians make up a significant portion of all immigrants who come to Norway.

Philosopher Jana Sverdljuk, herself originally from the Ukraine, is currently a guest researcher at the Nordic Institute for Women's Studies and Gender Research (NIKK). Inspired by the muticulturalism debate that continues in several European countries, she thought it would be interesting to research the growing community of Russian women in Norway's north. She has been in the counties Finnmark and Troms conducting in-depth interviews with women who have migrated from Russia to Norway. The interviews focused on the women's thoughts around work, family life and the future.

- Not racism

Sverdljuk interviewed women with various backgrounds: Some of them had been in Norway for many years, others had recently migrated across the border. Some had children, while others did not. In spite of the differences between them, most of the interviewees mentioned that the image of Russian women as prostitutes was normal among the ethnic Norwegians they had met. Usually this stereotype was expressed indirectly and disguised.

- Nevertheless, the tendency to look down on Russian women in Norway cannot be called racism, says the researcher. - Most Russians are fair skinned and many of them have taken higher education. In this they are different from other immigrants in Norway. When this group is discriminated against other questions need to be asked, she adds.

Sverdljuk uses the expression symbolic discrimination to describe the attitudes that Russian women face. Ideas left over from the Cold War characterize Norwegians' impressions of people from Russia, she says.

The depiction of Russian women as prostitutes is a normal stereotype. Another cliché is the notion of the oppressed and subjugated woman. In Sverdljuk's opinion the stereotypes have partly arisen because Russian women's involvement in prostitution has become general knowledge. One example was the media exposure of organised prostitution in Skiippagurra in Finnmark, several years ago. According to the researcher this sex industry had negative consequences both for Russian women and for Norwegians in the small communities in the North.

What actual consequences the Norwegians' stereotyped notions have for the daily lives of the Russian women who have settled in northern Norway the philosopher hopes to answer when she has finished analysing the mass of interview material she has. Since she has not yet studied the material in detail the ideas she expresses here are for the present preliminary.

Joint Nordic project

Jana Sverdljuk's research project is part of a larger Nordic collaboration on Russian women in the Barents region. The director of the project is the Finnish political scientist Aino Saarinen. The Swedish sociologist Kerstin Hägg is also taking part. Each of the three researchers is responsible for the interviews in "their" country. Thereafter all the interview material will be collected in one database that each of the researchers will analyze from their own perspective.

The Russian women's daily life, their citizenship, participation and their questions relating to social justice and acceptance will be central topics in the book that is planned to be the project's main report.

- This collaboration presents us with the possibility of comparing the experiences of Russian women across Nordic borders, Sverdljuk explains. Are, perhaps, the experiences of Russian immigrants in Finland different from those in Norway? The three researchers are not however basing their research purely on interviews with the Russian women, but are also looking at legislative documents and other structural conditions in the three Nordic countries, which can also influence the situation for immigrants from the east.

New to gender research

Jana Sverdljuk was educated as a philosopher, and has previously immersed herself in the work of known thinkers such as Habermas and Heidegger. Taking part in this project is the first time she has entered the world of gender research. Even though the field is new to her she does not feel a stranger in gender research.

- Since I am, myself, a woman, I recognised many of the issues in feminist theory immediately, she says. For her it was a stimulating challenge to connect theoretical knowledge with normal everyday problems.

- Many of the informants experience what we are studying as a personal matter. I feel that the outcome of this project can have real consequences for the women it concerns. This is perhaps the biggest difference between this and the interpreting of texts that I have done previously, says the fresh gender researcher.

Violence - can be psychological

At the end of May 2005 Jana Sverdljuk will present a paper at the Crossroads conference, at the University of Oslo. The theme for the conference is gender justice across cultures, religions and ethnicity. In the paper Sverdljuk problematizes the term "violence" in relation to symbolic oppression. The problem of violence was also the theme for some of the interviews the researcher conducted in northern Norway. - Some of the women that I interviewed told me that they had been subjected to various types of restrictions, for example financial, by their partner. In some of these cases the partner's behaviour must be characterised as psychological violence, she says.

In Sverdljuk's opinion there is a problem where Russian women who marry Norwegian men often have much poorer access to important information about how Norwegian society functions than the majority of asylum seekers. The situation of many women is characterised by a double vulnerability, because they are both women and strangers in an unknown country. - Psychological and physical violence in the Nordic countries is a theme we will focus on in our analysis, concludes Jana Sverdljuk.

Translated by Matthew Whiting KILDEN