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From Russia with Code

Au carrefour de la sociologie des sciences, de l'entrepreneuriat et de l’immigration, cet ouvrage s’intéresse à la circulation de ces programmeurs russes.

Post, Book release

Showcase of Russian Science since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russian computer Sciences has produced many talents who do not hesitate to leave Russia to settle around the wMore informorld. At the crossroads of the sociology of science, entrepreneurship and immigration, the book "From Russia with Code" focuses on the circulation of these Russian programmers and provides a panorama of this diaspora.

Based on a selection of case studies conducted between 2013 and 2015, "From Russia with Code" aims to understand transformations and structuration of this environment in Russia and beyond its borders throught different themes - code economics and new political allegiances, mobility and productivity of individuals, intellectual property -.

The research project at the origin of this book was funded under the "mégagrant" call for projects of the Russian Ministry of Education.

The book co-directed by Mario Biagioli and Vincent Antonin Lépinay will be published May 3 at Duke University Press.

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Abstract

"While Russian computer scientists are notorious for their interference in the 2016 US presidential election, they are ubiquitous on Wall Street and coveted by international IT firms and often perceive themselves as the present manifestation of the past glory of Soviet scientific prowess. Drawing on over three hundred in-depth interviews, the contributors to From Russia with Code trace the practices, education, careers, networks, migrations, and lives of Russian IT professionals at home and abroad, showing how they function as key figures in the tense political and ideological environment of technological innovation in post-Soviet Russia. Among other topics, they analyze coders' creation of both transnational communities and local networks of political activists; Moscow's use of IT funding to control peripheral regions; brain drain and the experiences of coders living abroad in the United Kingdom, United States, Israel, and Finland; and the possible meanings of Russian computing systems in a heterogeneous nation and industry. Highlighting the centrality of computer scientists to post-Soviet economic mobilization in Russia, the contributors offer new insights into the difficulties through which a new entrepreneurial culture emerges in a rapidly changing world."