Super-diverse City Research Articles

Exploring intercultural perspectives of migration futures in a super-diverse city through intercultural participatory futures workshops: The case of Istanbul

Most migration futures studies focus on reacting to migration issues such as flows and crises rather than exploring alternative images of futures centered on individual’s migration experiences. Addressing the limitations of existing practices criticized for their short-term, problem-oriented, and predominantly western, male-dominated, and colonized perspectives, this article presents intercultural participatory futures workshops as a novel technique for exploring more inclusive and intercultural migration futures. This approach enabled participants to collaboratively envision, build, and discuss alternative futures of migration for Istanbul in 2050 in eight workshop sessions with 35 intercultural participants. Additionally, it fostered a space to share experiences, and thoughts on futures, while meaningfully interacting with one another. Therefore, the contribution of this article to the migration futures field is two-fold: first, it showcases the potential of intercultural participatory futures workshops for exploring and constructing inclusive and participatory visions of migration futures, while contrasting collective visions and individual concerns; and second, it explains the relevance of this approach as a unique opportunity to foster intercultural meaningful social interactions, a key kind of interaction for social inclusion between individuals with migration backgrounds and host society.

The (un)importance of ethnicity in adolescents’ boundary making: An analysis over a two-school year period in a super-diverse city

Drawing on three rounds of in-depth interviews with Antwerp pupils aged 11–14, we examine how adolescents’ moral boundary making shifts (or not) during the course of a two-school year period, as they talk about whom they like to hang out with (or not), the diversity in their surroundings and in their friendship groups, and the (un)importance of ethnicity in their peer relations. The results show that adolescents initially draw three subtypes of moral boundaries (based on being “good-rebellious”, “stingy-generous” or “decent-indecent”) to emphasize so-called differences between the majority and minority groups; these boundaries, however, reportedly do not structure their friendship groups and even become disconnected from ethnicity in the latter research rounds. Moral boundaries that are set not to distinguish between ethnic majority and minority groups, but against the children of recently arrived immigrants (“established-outsider” boundaries), however, are salient in all three research rounds and are reportedly not crossed in our respondents’ friendship group formation.

The promises and limitations of digital participation in heritage: Planning transmedia heritage districts in superdiverse cities

ABSTRACT New technologies have been argued to drive a more inclusive heritage discourse that accommodates a plurality of narratives. This article aims to examine this assumption based on the analysis of the heritage digitalisation strategies of Doha and Singapore. These cities have made significant investments in heritage preservation and digital technologies, positioning themselves as smart, creative, and culturally diverse urban centres. At the core of these strategies are transmedia heritage districts, which, despite having limited physical remnants of the past, revive their heritage across a range of online and offline channels. Based on an analysis of policy documents and on fieldwork in these cities, this article raises questions regarding the transformative power of the digital and its ability to democratise and pluralise the heritage discourse. I argue that while heritage digitalisation can function as a tool to showcase openness, strategically empower co-opted civic dynamics, it can also reinforce the prevailing heritage narrative. The transmedia heritage district serves as a policy instrument that displays the civic potential of digital heritage technologies in order to enable urban transformation and incorporate selected minority voices into the authorised heritage discourse.

Geographies of (un)ease: Embodying racial stigma and social navigation in public spaces in a reluctantly super-diverse city

ABSTRACT Combining insights from sociology, geography, and race-ethnicity studies, this exploratory study examines how young middle-class Moroccan-Dutch men navigate geographies of (un)ease and the subsequent coping strategies they employ in public spaces of Rotterdam. Drawing on 12 semi-structured walking interviews in Rotterdam, our findings reveal that (un)ease is not only affected by the types of surrounding bodies and the amount of attention directed at these bodies, but also by spatial and temporal factors, such as day-night, quietness-liveliness, whiteness-racialization, immobility-mobility and familiarity-unfamiliarity. Furthermore, we mapped the men’s geography of (un)ease, showing how stigma is spatially situated in relation to different neighborhoods. In contrast to previous studies, respondents did not seem to only opt for conflict avoidant strategies as their main coping strategies utilized were ignoring, avoiding, reforming and contesting.

Glamour or sham? Residents' perceptions of city branding in a superdiverse city: The case of Rotterdam

This study focused on the reconstruction of residents' city imaginaries in a superdiverse context, and on the question how residents relate to official city branding. This is an important question, as there is great gap in the literature on how residents perceive brands. Eight focus groups were conducted in the city of Rotterdam, which is considered a typical superdiverse city. The focus groups have shown the complexity of developing a city brand that fits residents' experiences, as the daily encounters and memories of residents go much deeper than most branding communications, in which ‘superficial’ assets of the city are put to the front. The raw, messy and multi-faced reality of residents is harshly in line with the ‘picture perfect’ brand image. Especially in a superdiverse city, as Rotterdam, where this ‘messy’ reality on the level of the streets is felt as home for many residents. The focus groups have hence captured a strong sense of belonging to the city, whereas the branding of the municipality raises frustration and feelings of exclusion with residents. The overall feeling of disapproval of the city brand goes beyond individual characteristics of residents, such as age, education level and cultural background.

How do people without migration background experience and impact today’s superdiverse cities?

ABSTRACT For over forty years researchers have studied the integration of migrants and their descendants in Western European cities. In the meantime, many of these cities have become majority minority cities, hence, cities in which an ethnic numerical majority no longer exists. This raises the question how the old majority group, the people of native descent, participates in and relates to these superdiverse cities. In this special issue, we raise long overdue questions about some of the inherent problems of mainstream theoretical frameworks explaining integration and assimilation outcomes. While primarily focusing on people with a migration background, these frameworks usually omit the attitudes and practices of people without migration background that impact the societal climate in which people with migration background live and work. In this introductory article we discuss the literature and theoretical notions about the experiences and the impact people without migration background have on societal outcomes in superdiverse cities. We will further introduce the articles in this special issue and propose a research agenda for studying people without migration background in majority minority cities.

Mainland Chinese first-generation immigrants and New Zealanders’ views on sport participation, race/ethnicity and the body: Does sport participation enhance cultural understandings?

This study set within the superdiverse city of Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand examined how mainland Chinese first-generation immigrants and Pākehā (white New Zealanders) discursively understood each other in the context of sport and physical activity. Existing policy within Aotearoa/New Zealand is underpinned by the simplistic notion that social cohesion will be organically improved for culturally and linguistically diverse migrants if sport participation rates are increased for these people. This study contributes to the discussion of whether sporting involvement improves cultural understandings and enhances social integration. Data was collected via interviews with Chinese immigrants and New Zealanders (predominately Pākehā) and analysed through a theoretical framework, incorporating the ideas of Foucault and Derrida. First, from a western-centric perspective, we suggested that the workings of discourse construct Chinese first-generation immigrants and other Asian ethnic groups into ethnic ‘others’ that were subject to various forms of prejudice. Second, Chinese participants were often aware of how they were positioned via the workings of discourse but in response, at times, were ‘wilful’ to reject participation in sports that they thought were overly aggressive. The results illustrated that sport participation does not simplistically enhance ethnic and cultural understandings or produce acceptance of cultural diversity as policymakers hope to achieve. We argue that without specific policy strategies to help migrants participate in sport that affords them recognised benefits (i.e., cultural capital) in the dominant culture, the simplistic strategy of encouraging sport participation can be read as a technology of assimilation.

Constructing Local Belonging through Art and Activism in Context of Anti-Migration Politics, Stigmatisation and Gentrification: What Migration Studies can Learn from Belleville and Maddalena

Despite a decade of self-criticism, research perspectives on migration studies remain too often centred on national belonging (Glick Schiller & Çağlar 2011). Based on two empirical examples, self-organised fashion and music shows in Paris and Genoa, this article shows how “event lenses” can constructively replace “ethnic lenses” in the analysis of artivistic practices that aim at changing political situations and living conditions. Wearing “event lenses” also helps us to question supposed homogeneities and to investigate common civic or political practices and interests by emphasizing multiple belonging processes in various social situations (Yuval-Davis et al. 2006, 7). I show how the research perspective of migration studies can be guided by the complexity of migrants’ multiple belongings and by situational analysis. The article presents results from my ERC project “ARTIVISM. Art and activism. Creativity and Performance as Subversive Forms of Political Expression in Super-Diverse Cities”, guided by an event-centred approach and multi-sensory audio-visual ethnography. The Parisian district of Belleville and the Maddalena district of Genoa suffer both from negative stigmatisations related to informal economical practices. I show how the super-diverse populations in these marginalised but gentrifying spaces creatively reverse xenophobic stigmata, by valorising their biographies and multiple belongings through fashion shows.

In search of a cool identity: how young people negotiate religious and ethnic boundaries in a superdiverse context

In this paper, we aim to study how young people navigate a super-diverse majority-minority context, and how they negotiate bright religious and ethnic symbolic boundaries. Our study is based on 40 in-depth interviews with young people from various ethnic, social and religious backgrounds in the super-diverse city of Antwerp. Our analysis shows that young people generally draw on a cultural repertoire of commonplace diversity to navigate various peer relations and present diversity as a normal element of everyday life. However, our analysis also shows how ethnic minority youth experience bright ethnic and religious boundaries and need to navigate social exclusion processes. While minority youth rework bright boundaries by inverting their othered position and redefining coolness through a repertoire of ethnic hybridity, white majority youth face new challenges as their previously taken-for-granted dominant position becomes questioned and contested within a super-diverse setting. Our analysis shows how white majority youth manage their changing social position by drawing upon cultural repertoires of ethnic purity and ‘normal’ youthfulness, yet this also raises the question of whether they can draw on cultural repertoires, which do not imply nativist white identity politics.

Migrant churches in The Hague – new religious and linguistic opportunities for churchgoers

ABSTRACT The Hague, the third largest city of The Netherlands, is a multicultural and multi-ethnic urban centre with many migrant churches scattered across the city. This article examines the linguistic presence and identity of a select number of English-speaking churches and their identification through Linguistic Landscaping. Our findings show that, while it is claimed that Dutch society is becoming increasingly secularised, the many migrant and other international churches currently present in The Hague suggest the opposite. In addition, it appeared that English-language churches in The Hague attract large numbers of Dutch congregants for whom English is their second language. Reasons for this are that English is perceived as a lighter language than Dutch for practising their religion, and that it brings fresh perspectives to their faith. The use of English is thus expanding to the religious domain in The Netherlands in a new way (cf. Edwards, A. 2016. English in the Netherlands: Functions, Forms and Attitudes. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins). Applying Linguistic Landscaping as a research tool was found to work only for older heritage-language churches, which have a more established and sometimes even officially recognised position in the city, than newer migrant churches, whose presence is often transient in line with the changing nature of superdiverse cities.

Reflections on ubuntu theology in a British urban context: Christian koinonia, kenosis and the ummah

]In a super-diverse city such as Birmingham in the United Kingdom, inner-city Anglican churches are frequently situated within a range of communities, holding different worldviews both within and without the church walls, impacting any subsequent understanding of relational life, or koinonia. This paper seeks to reflect on aspects of relational life in my own context, using Desmond Tutu’s ubuntu theology as a lens through which to critique shared, lived experience. I conclude that ubuntu theology may facilitate a rediscovery of ancient ways of thinking, that extends an invitation to the Anglican church in Western contexts to re-envision Trinitarian ecclesiologies.

Life in London on the Eve of Brexit – Polish Migrants’ Reports

London is home to the largest community of Polish migrants in Great Britain. The multicultural and superdiverse character of the city frequently – though not always – helps newly-arrived inhabitants to settle and decide to stay for longer or for ever. In 2016 there was a referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership in the European Union. It was a moment when many migrants (re)considered their presence and their position in the society of the United Kingdom. One of the largest affected groups of migrants were the Poles. The purpose of this article is to present the situation of Polish migrants on the eve of Brexit, from the perspective of life in a multicultural and superdiverse city – London. The spectre of Brexit has brought out social tensions, detectible to varying degrees depending on the social character of the place of residence in question. In this article I have tried to answer the question: To what extent have the social mood and the social status of migrants in their own perception changed due to Brexit in the context of London’s multiculturalism and superdiversity? The article was based on 25 in-depth interviews with Polish migrants living in London. The research was realised within the framework of the scientific program: “The process of the social (re)adaptation of Polish migrants in London when facing Brexit – change and redefinition of social status from an intragroup perspective” (Miniatura 2, NCN Register No.: 2018/02/X/HS6/02300). Interviews were carried out at the end of April and the beginning of May, and in October 2019.

Where I Belong: Identification Processes of Young Volunteers in Super-Diverse Cities

In the context of super-diverse cities, scholars and policy makers are increasingly interested in the potential of volunteering to establish identification for newcomers and locals alike. In this paper, we address the question of how young volunteers in Rotterdam and Vienna negotiate belonging within their super-diverse surroundings. Our exploratory study builds on a cross-national research project in which we collected qualitative interview data from volunteering youth. We follow a weak-theory approach and conceptualise belonging as emotional, procedural, and relational. We trace identification processes of newcomers and locals in terms of belonging through volunteering in urban contexts of super-diversity. Our paper demonstrates that volunteering serves as a vehicle for feelings of belonging and inclusion for young volunteers, specifically addressing the urban super-diversity of Vienna and Rotterdam. Our research also indicates the partiality and temporality of volunteering as a source of belonging and the function of volunteering as a structure of inclusion, not necessarily enabling structural inclusion.

Classifying the Diversity of Urban Diversities: an Inductive Analysis of European Cities

This paper provides an empirical classification of migration-related diversities in 166 European cities. The local turn in migration studies has shown that migration-related diversity may take varied forms in different cities. Our understanding of how and why cities differ is lagging behind the wealth of existing conceptualisations. This is partly because most studies look only at one kind of city, in particular, superdiverse global cities. This paper takes a systematic inductive approach to map the diversity of migration-related diversities in urban setting and understand the reasons behind such variations. Applying quantitative classification methods to European cities in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, we search for a new meaningful classification of the urban diversity configurations based on measures of volume, variety and spread of migration-related diversity. Five empirical clusters of cities of migration are found: superdiverse cities, migrant minority cities, new diversity cities, low-migration cities and non-diverse cities. Subsequently, we develop a better qualitative understanding of these clusters by examining typical cities, their economic positioning, migration history, their policy and political structures, as well as their social and geographical position. A thorough classification, we argue, is necessary to have a more differentiated view of the existing urban diversities and go beyond one-size-fits-all solutions for urban governance of migration-related diversity.

Negotiating a contested identity: Religious individualism among Muslim youth in a super-diverse city

This paper aims to understand how young Muslims in the super-diverse city of Antwerp negotiate the tensions between their religious identification and the broader cultural framework of individualism. Young Muslims in Antwerp face the challenge to present themselves as autonomous, while maintaining their religious identification. Based on 26 interviews with Muslim students in two secondary schools, we describe how presenting a dignified self to both non-Muslim and Muslim audiences requires a delicate balancing act. Drawing conceptually from cultural sociology, we explore how our respondents present themselves towards various audiences by selectively employing elements from the cultural repertoire of ‘religious individualism’. In our analysis, we examine four ways in which respondents employ this repertoire to rework the potential tensions and present themselves as agentive within their religious framework. We also discuss how negotiating a contested identity requires more taxing boundary work for girls, and how they challenge gender norms without denying their religious identification. Overall, our analysis demonstrates how young Muslims in a West European context engage in complex boundary work and creatively draw on the cultural repertoire of religious individualism to negotiate their multiple identifications.

The right to the city: outdoor informal sport and urban belonging in multicultural spaces

ABSTRACT Studies on ‘everyday multiculturalism’ and ‘lived multiculture’ have advanced knowledge on the kinds of inclusive everyday spaces and practices that characterize our culturally complex, mobile and superdiverse cities. This paper expands this agenda by exploring informal sporting and leisure interactions amongst migrant and ethnically diverse urban populations. Embedded in a larger comparative city project that examines how urban environments and wider social structures mediate inclusions and exclusions of urban dwellers, this paper presents a case study of temporary migrant workers in Singapore and their participation in outdoor informal sport. It deploys Lefebvre's notion of ‘Right to the City’ to understand city dwellers’ access to urban resources and their collective ability to democratically inhabit the city. Despite structural constraints imposed on marginalized migrants, the nature of informal sport, the spontaneous coming together to play, creative use of public space and a range of convivial practices, generate a sense of urban belonging.

Recontextualisation and advocacy in the translation zone

Abstract This paper reports an element of a team linguistic ethnography which investigated the ways people communicate with each other in the changing, dynamic environments of superdiverse cities in the UK. The particular example examined here is that of a ‘translation zone’ between an advice worker and her Chinese clients in a community centre with a remit to support Chinese people in the city. In the interaction the advice worker, herself a migrant from China, translates relevant aspects of the complex, bureaucratic welfare benefits system, deploying interlingual, intralingual, and intersemiotic translation. More than this, however, the advice worker engages in recontextualisation, co-constructing and re-shaping the client’s narrative so that it meets the criteria of the government welfare benefits office. Recontextualisation is a consistent feature of the discourse practice of the advice worker as she seeks to support her clients. We propose that it may well be a salient feature of interactional encounters as people seek help and advocacy to negotiate complex bureaucratic systems.

Religion and everyday cosmopolitanism among religious and non-religious urban youth

While there is ample research on everyday cosmopolitanism, the relation with religion is less understood. This study examines the difference in everyday cosmopolitanism between Muslim, Christian and non-religious urban youth. Further, it studies the influence of religiosity, religious identification and perceived discrimination on cosmopolitanism. A one-way ANOVA analysis was conducted on data from 1039 students in 17 secondary schools in the super-diverse city of Antwerp. Multilevel regression analysis was conducted on a sample of Muslim ( n = 496) and Christian ( n = 225) youth. The results indicate no difference between religious and non-religious youth regarding their everyday cosmopolitanism. Moreover, for Muslim youth, intrinsic religiosity is positively associated with cosmopolitan orientations, while religious identification and discrimination negatively effect cosmopolitanism. For Christian youth, religious factors do not explain their cosmopolitan orientations. Overall, the article suggests that scholars and policy makers should discuss the potential of religion to foster cosmopolitan orientations.

Studying in the Superdiverse City: System_D and the Challenge of Solidarity in Brussels

In recent years, the relation between studying and learning has been a topic of debate. This article is mainly interested in a concept of study practices, conceived of as practices that are strongly engaged with issues of living together in a superdiverse city. Such practices firstly require to think the relation between studying and learning in other-than-oppositional terms, and secondly, to raise questions concerning the political role of education. The aim of the article is double in that it wants to further elaborate the concept of study practices in relation to a concrete practice on the one hand, and, on the other, that it has the objective to rethink in educational terms the notion of solidarity—deeply entwined with matters of living together in superdiversity. These aims are pursued based on an analysis of the study practice of System_D, a film festival in the disadvantaged neighborhoods of Brussels, drawing on the work of Isabelle Stengers and Donna Haraway.

Communities of struggle: the making of a protest movement around housing, migration and racism beyond identity politics in Berlin

ABSTRACT After the initial moments of political protest have passed, urban protest movements and neighbourhood initiatives often face the challenge of establishing a sustainable organizing structure in their neighbourhoods and of creating long-lasting collaborations, including maintaining relations among various participants and heterogeneous political actors in the city. This paper analyses the political practice of Kotti & Co, an urban neighbourhood initiative that has been active in political struggles pertaining to social housing and displacement and working against racism and neoliberal urban politics in the super-diverse city of Berlin. In the larger context of urban protest movements since 2011, the initiative managed to overcome a series of political challenges and to build a long-lasting organizing practice. The authors identify Kotti & Co as a ‘community of struggle’ that was able to foster a lasting movement through three elements of sustainability. The protest first managed to build bridges across and beyond its members’ differences (class, migration background, sexual orientation) by finding a common set of political demands and social practices as well as by establishing collective place-based subjectivities. These place-based subjectivities have contributed to overcoming conventional identity politics by forming a new kind of political identity through the struggle itself.