Subversive Mobilities and Vernacular Legal Navigation : Uzbek Migrants in Nordic Migration Regimes
(2026) In Social and Legal Studies- Abstract
This article examines the subversive mobilities and vernacular legal navigation of Uzbek migrants in Finland and Sweden, highlighting their tactical responses to restrictive Nordic migration regimes. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork (2022–2025), including interviews, focus groups and digital ethnography, we explore how migrants with precarious statuses navigate legal ambiguity, administrative opacity and discretionary enforcement. Through informal knowledge networks, cross-border mobility and performative compliance, Uzbek migrants creatively reinterpret and circumvent institutional constraints. We advance the concept of subversive mobilities (Cohen et al., 2017) and introduce ‘vernacular legal navigation’ to theorise how migrants... (More)
This article examines the subversive mobilities and vernacular legal navigation of Uzbek migrants in Finland and Sweden, highlighting their tactical responses to restrictive Nordic migration regimes. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork (2022–2025), including interviews, focus groups and digital ethnography, we explore how migrants with precarious statuses navigate legal ambiguity, administrative opacity and discretionary enforcement. Through informal knowledge networks, cross-border mobility and performative compliance, Uzbek migrants creatively reinterpret and circumvent institutional constraints. We advance the concept of subversive mobilities (Cohen et al., 2017) and introduce ‘vernacular legal navigation’ to theorise how migrants engage with law as a plural, culturally mediated field. These practices reveal tensions between formal legal frameworks and migrant agency, contributing to socio-legal and migration scholarship. By bridging strategic mobility and everyday legal consciousness, we re-theorise migrant agency as adaptive, relational and situated within the moral and bureaucratic complexity of European migration regimes.
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- author
- Eraliev, Sherzod LU and Urinboyev, Rustam LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2026
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- epub
- subject
- keywords
- legal consciousness, legal precarity, Nordic migration regimes, subversive mobilities, vernacular legal navigation
- in
- Social and Legal Studies
- publisher
- SAGE Publications
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105031417602
- ISSN
- 0964-6639
- DOI
- 10.1177/09646639261426441
- project
- MARS: Non-Western Migration Regimes in a Global Perspective
- Informality, Migrant Precarity and Exploitation in Nordic Context: Uzbek Migrant Workers in Sweden and Finland
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 583aa7a7-8415-44a7-a4ac-81464914fb5a
- date added to LUP
- 2026-03-07 14:03:24
- date last changed
- 2026-03-09 09:24:15
@article{583aa7a7-8415-44a7-a4ac-81464914fb5a,
abstract = {{<p>This article examines the subversive mobilities and vernacular legal navigation of Uzbek migrants in Finland and Sweden, highlighting their tactical responses to restrictive Nordic migration regimes. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork (2022–2025), including interviews, focus groups and digital ethnography, we explore how migrants with precarious statuses navigate legal ambiguity, administrative opacity and discretionary enforcement. Through informal knowledge networks, cross-border mobility and performative compliance, Uzbek migrants creatively reinterpret and circumvent institutional constraints. We advance the concept of subversive mobilities (Cohen et al., 2017) and introduce ‘vernacular legal navigation’ to theorise how migrants engage with law as a plural, culturally mediated field. These practices reveal tensions between formal legal frameworks and migrant agency, contributing to socio-legal and migration scholarship. By bridging strategic mobility and everyday legal consciousness, we re-theorise migrant agency as adaptive, relational and situated within the moral and bureaucratic complexity of European migration regimes.</p>}},
author = {{Eraliev, Sherzod and Urinboyev, Rustam}},
issn = {{0964-6639}},
keywords = {{legal consciousness; legal precarity; Nordic migration regimes; subversive mobilities; vernacular legal navigation}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{SAGE Publications}},
series = {{Social and Legal Studies}},
title = {{Subversive Mobilities and Vernacular Legal Navigation : Uzbek Migrants in Nordic Migration Regimes}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09646639261426441}},
doi = {{10.1177/09646639261426441}},
year = {{2026}},
}