Migrants in the university city (the attitude of the host society)

The study of migration processes is becoming more and more urgent every year. Currently, two approaches have been formulated to the assessment of opportunities and risks connected with transborder migration, which are security and development. Supporters of the idea of development believe that without engaging foreign workers, the development of Russian economy is impossible and therefore Russian migration policy should be as open and attractive as possible. Adherents of the idea of security, on the other hand, see migrants as a source of danger for maintaining the stability of the host society, and are heavily standing for a ban on influx of new migrants and for ousting those who have already "come in". That is why it is of great importance to study the attitude of the host society to the increasing migration and migrants, to reveal the correlation between supporters of the idea of development and the adherents of the idea of security. Since the economic and demographic situation in each region of Russia differs, it is necessary to study the attitude of the host society to labor migration not only in capitals and large megacities, but also in the provinces, small towns and rural areas. In that regard, it is of interest to study the attitude of the host society to migrants in university cities, where, alone with the labor migrants, "educational" migrants from former Soviet Republics and non-CIS states come for higher education. As an object of the research, the authors of the article chose the city of Tomsk as one of the leading centers of Russia in the consolidation of scientific and educational potential. In order to study public opinion on the subjects of migration and intercultural integration in the region, a survey of Tomsk residents was carried out in the summer and autumn 2014 in the framework of the research of the Network for Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts (EAWARN) and the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. During the first two stages, 400 respondents were interviewed; at the third stage the survey was aimed at studying expert opinion (100 people were interviewed). The authors came to the following conclusions: the majority of Tomsk residents do not see a threat from labor migrant for themselves and are neutral about engaging foreign workers to the sector of employment related to low-skilled labor. Most respondents do not share the existing stereotype of the increased criminal nature of the migrant environment. The majority of Tomsk resident, including experts, unconditionally supported the idea of creating special centers for migrants that will provide migrants with necessary services related with the job and accommodation search, completion of documents. Such centers are considered as a necessary condition for the successful adaptation of foreign workers. In general, we can state the dominance in public mood and experts' opinion of the perception of labor migrants as necessary workers for the development of the Tomsk region.

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