E-namus? Social networking sites and conservative norms of romantic relationships among second-generation migrants in Russia

ABSTRACT

This article describes the normative system that attempts to regulate online behaviour in the sphere of premarital romantic relationships of the second-generation migrants whose parents came to Russia from societies of the South Caucasus which regulate female behaviour more strictly. Based on a mixed-method study, which included a survey, a series of semi-structured interviews and digital ethnography, we describe the norms as well as the means by which they are enforced. We show that this normative system is rooted in the cultural concept of namus, which regulates the behaviour of females, while the control function is imposed mainly on their male relatives. We argue however, that these norms are widely circumvented and e-namus (manifestation of namus on the web) can barely prevent second-generation migrant females from having online romance. This brings about a radical change in gender relations altogether. The article contributes to the literature related to offline-online normative transfer, online dating, second-generation migrants’ romantic relationships and intergenerational value change.

KEYWORDS:

• Social networking sites
• second-generation migrants
• romantic relationship
• Russia
• namus

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The term originates from Ivahnyuk (2012). See also discussion of the term in Brunarska, Nestorowicz, and Markowski (2014).

2 CIS – the Commonwealth of Independent States – got established in 1991 right after the collapse of the Soviet Union and embraced 12 of its former 15 republics.

3 A technique of sampling using ads is described and analyzed in ‘Migrant sampling using Facebook advertisements: A case study of Polish migrants in four European countries’ (Pötzschke and Braun 2016).

4 Quantitative data may be provided upon request

5 For exact formulations of the questions, see the table below.

6 Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte give an opportunity to send a ‘present’ for money which is a special sticker.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Government of Russia [Governmental assignment of RANEPA for 2021].