Transcontinental migration gatewaysas places of modernity

The paper is devoted to the concept of “gateways of transcontinental migration” as elements of a special type of socio-spatial configuration that emerged in the late 19th - early 20thcenturies.Their first historical forms appeared simultaneously in different geographic points during the mass migration processes of the first wave of globalization. Those “places of modernity” arose as a result of the rapid development of transport and media infrastructure, the medicalization of various aspects of human life and society, the triumph of expert rationality in public administration, etc. The author analyzes in detail two examples of migration “hubs” that have arisen along the lines of intensive migration: the Ellis Island registration point for transatlantic migrants in New York and the resettlement center in Chelyabinsk for peasants who were trying to move beyond the Urals. Ellis Island embodied the state's need for control, management, and accounting. At the same time, the activities of many expert groups in the various services of this center contributed to the generation of knowledge about society and to the accumulation of statistical material. Ellis Island is remembered in mental maps of millions of US residents as a place of intense personal experience and emotions. The resettlement center in Chelyabinsk also served as a collection point for personal information and statistical data and played an important role in the migration processes in the late imperial Russia. However, in modern cultural memory of the inhabitants of Russia, it is almost unrepresented, non-museificated and not used in symbolic politics. The author considers other characteristics that distinguish the two “transcontinental mobility gateways” though the focus is on 15 ideally-typical characteristics common to any social space of the kind. The final part of the article raises questions about further development of the research within the framework of the presented concept.