Narrating Immigrant Experience: Friends and Friendship in the Biographical Stories of Young Russian-Speakers in Finland

Abstract

In this article, I examine narratives about childhood experiences in immigration represented by Russian-speaking young people living in Finland, and I will pay special attention to the conceptualisation of friends and friendships and its use in the construction of immigration and integration experiences. Therefore, I discuss the concepts of friends and friendship in Russian language and culture. Following the conceptualisation of friends and friendship in the immigration narratives of the Russian-speaking young people, I consider three categories configured by means of friendship terms: transnational space, locally organised relations between the natives and immigrants, and agency in immigration. As a result, I conclude that friendship relations, understood as a quintessence of close and equal relationships, are an extremely suitable means for measurement of relatedness and connectedness in the initially strange social environment of immigration.