So talking about lines that blur, no, how can we, uh, understand it at the same time, or how have you observed it maybe in your work as simultaneously, I guess, a form of potential resistance if we wanna frame it in these terms, and on the same time, uh, allowing maybe the reproduction of economic habits as they are already in place, or when either of those maybe frameworks might not work?

Right.

Um, that's a good question.

You know, I would, I would say first two things about the premise that is already in the question.

First of all, about the importance of post-Soviet context for the research of informality.

I would, um, agree and disagree with you here in the sense that, yes, of course, now we've got this fantastic, uh, volume by David Hoenig and Nicolette Markovic about economies of favor in, um, post-communist, um, Central and Eastern Europe.

And, and, and, um, now there is so much research in Central Asia as well.

So while rethinking informality sounds very compelling in theory, what does it mean in your own work and research practice?

Um, how, how do you feel your understanding of Russia has been shaped by your personal experience, I guess, and your time within British and Western academia?

Well, um, you know, that's a very, very good question because, um, Russia is an interesting kind of fish, you know? It's like a massive whale which if we look at it historically- Every now and then it throws out a cohort of people which, um, I don't know, I was trying to count, you know, in, in, in the book, in, uh, uh, The Russian Pendulum in chapter one, I think I had seven or eight waves of immigration.

So these are people who fundamentally not wanted by the system or viewed to be as not compliant, not fitting, or they themselves deciding, you know, they, they're gonna go.

But the paradox that I discovered about the Russian immigration is that those people who actually want to leave, very often they cannot, and they have no chance.

But those people who find themselves outside Russia, they find themselves, um, not due to their own will.

So they are actually pushed out or expelled.

So when you look at the post-2022 immigration in the, um, aftermath of Russia's invasion into Ukraine, what you see is that all those people, they didn't want to leave.

So, um, where might this come from within Russia or?

Um, how, how do you feel your understanding of Russia has been shaped by your personal experience, I guess, and your time within British and Western academia?

Well, um, you know, that's a very, very good question because, um, Russia is an interesting kind of fish.

You know? It's like a massive whale which if we look at it historically, every now and then it throws out a cohort of people which, um, I don't know.

I was trying to count, you know, in, in, in the book, in, uh, uh, The Russian Pendulum, in chapter one I think I had seven or eight waves of immigration.

So these are people who fundamentally not wanted by the system or viewed to be as not compliant, not fitting, or they themselves deciding, you know, they, they are gonna go.

But the paradox that I discovered about the Russian immigration is that those people who actually want to leave, very often they cannot and they have no chance.

But those people who find themselves outside Russia, they find themselves, um, not due to their own will, so they are actually pushed out or expelled.

So, um, where might this come from within Russia or?

Could you just talk a little about what sociological ambivalence is and why this is so essential to understanding Russia?

Well, maybe we should just quickly say that ambivalence generally comes from social psychology.

And the original term ambivalence has been invented in 1918, I think by a Belgian psychologist.

His name escapes me at the moment.

Whereas sociological ambivalence and what it means basically in social psychology is love-hate relationship.

So we choose to say humans are capable of experiencing emotions which are contradictory to each other at the same time, like in love-hate relationships.

Sociological ambivalence was theorized by a famous American sociologist, Robert Merton, who has suggested that actually there are some social roles that put you in a position of conflicting pressures.

of Russia, which was