Superdiversity

Superdiversity explores processes of diversification and the complex, emergent social configurations that now supersede prior forms of diversity in societies around the world. Migration plays a key role in these processes, bringing changes not just in social, cultural, religious and linguistic phenomena, but also in the ways that these phenomena combine with others like gender, age, and legal status. The concept of superdiversity has been adopted by scholars across the social sciences in order to address a variety of forms, modes and outcomes of diversification. Central to this field is the relationship between social categorization and social organization, including stratification and inequality. Increasingly complex categories of social ""difference"" have significant impacts across scales, from entire societies to individual identities. While diversification is often met with simplifying stereotypes, threat narratives, and expressions of antagonism, superdiversity encourages a perspective on difference as comprising multiple social processes, flexible collective meanings, and overlapping personal and group identities. A superdiversity approach encourages the re-evaluation and recognition of social categories as multidimensional, unfixed, and porous as opposed to views based on hardened, one-dimensional thinking about groups. Diversification and increasing social complexity are bound to continue, if not intensify, in light of climate change. This will have profound impacts on the nature of global migration, social relations, and inequalities. Superdiversity presents a convincing case for recognizing new social formations created by changing migration patterns and calls for a re-thinking of public policy and social scientific approaches to social difference.　 This introduction to the multidisciplinary concept of superdiversity will be of considerable interest to students and researchers in a range of fields in the humanities and social sciences

Superdiversity

Superdiversity explores processes of diversification and the complex, emergent social configurations that now supersede prior forms of diversity in societies around the world. Migration plays a key role in these processes, bringing changes not just in social, cultural, religious and linguistic phenomena, but also in the ways that these phenomena combine with others like gender, age, and legal status. The concept of superdiversity has been adopted by scholars across the social sciences in order to address a variety of forms, modes and outcomes of diversification. Central to this field is the relationship between social categorization and social organization, including stratification and inequality. Increasingly complex categories of social ""difference"" have significant impacts across scales, from entire societies to individual identities. While diversification is often met with simplifying stereotypes, threat narratives, and expressions of antagonism, superdiversity encourages a perspective on difference as comprising multiple social processes, flexible collective meanings, and overlapping personal and group identities. A superdiversity approach encourages the re-evaluation and recognition of social categories as multidimensional, unfixed, and porous as opposed to views based on hardened, one-dimensional thinking about groups. Diversification and increasing social complexity are bound to continue, if not intensify, in light of climate change. This will have profound impacts on the nature of global migration, social relations, and inequalities. Superdiversity presents a convincing case for recognizing new social formations created by changing migration patterns and calls for a re-thinking of public policy and social scientific approaches to social difference.　 This introduction to the multidisciplinary concept of superdiversity will be of considerable interest to students and researchers in a range of fields in the humanities and social sciences

Indirect contact predicts direct contact : longitudinal evidence and the mediating role of intergroup anxiety

While the effects of direct and indirect forms of contact on intergroup relations are well documented, little is known about their longitudinal co-development. Based on the social-psychological literature, we hypothesize that indirect contact predicts future direct contact by reducing intergroup anxiety. Across five longitudinal studies (Study 1: German adults, N = 560; Study 2: German, Dutch, and Swedish school students, N = 6,600; Study 3: Northern Irish children, N = 1,593; Study 4: Northern Irish adults, N = 404; Study 5: German adults, N = 735), we systematically examined this effect, and further tested the mediating role of intergroup anxiety in Studies 3 to 5. Cross-lagged models provided consistent evidence for the positive effect of indirect contact on future direct contact, while a reduction in intergroup anxiety mediates this effect in most models. Results highlight the importance of indirect contact, which has the potential to increase direct contact, and thus promote social cohesion in diverse contexts, over time.PostprintPeer reviewe

Urban markets and diversity: towards a research agenda

In this paper we advocate the study of local street markets to explore fundamental issues about the relationship between economy and society. This relationship evolves over time and we believe that it has been recast in an age of increasing cultural diversity and neo-liberal state regulatory structures. In street markets we can see how diversity and the nature of economic transactions become mutually constitutive. We argue that cultural diversity propels local markets, while everyday interactions in markets influence intercultural relationships. These complex processes are affected by the spatiality of markets and the regulatory environments within which they operate. We conclude by framing a research programme on street markets and discuss a number of methodological complications that would need to be addressed in this endeavour

Migration and identity processes among first-generation British South Asians

There has been little scholarly attention to the identities and migratory experiences of first-generation British South Asians, especially from social psychologists. Drawing upon Identity Process Theory, this article examines the inter-relations between migration and identity processes among twenty first-generation British South Asians. The interview data were analysed using qualitative thematic analysis. Results suggested that migration was perceived as a means of enhancing identity and that following migration individuals acquired a ‘higher’ social status in the homeland. Moreover, the psychologically traumatic aspects of migration, such as the loss of community and ‘otherisation’ from one's ethnic ingroup, were outlined. It is argued that migration can have profound socio-psychological implications and that decades later it can continue to shape individuals' sense of self and their attachment to relevant social categories. Furthermore, migration has important outcomes for the extent and nature of British national identification as well one's relationship with the ethnic ‘homeland’

Being Tamil, being Hindu:Tamil migrants’ negotiations of the absence of Tamil Hindu spaces in the West Midlands and South West of England

This paper considers the religious practices of Tamil Hindus who have settled in the West Midlands and South West of England in order to explore how devotees of a specific ethno-regional Hindu tradition with a well-established UK infrastructure in the site of its adherents’ population density adapt their religious practices in settlement areas which lack this infrastructure. Unlike the majority of the UK Tamil population who live in the London area, the participants in this study did not have ready access to an ethno-religious infrastructure of Tamil-orientated temples and public rituals. The paper examines two means by which this absence was addressed as well as the intersections and negotiations of religion and ethnicity these entailed: firstly, Tamil Hindus’ attendance of temples in their local area which are orientated towards a broadly imagined Hindu constituency or which cater to a non-Tamil ethno-linguistic or sectarian community; and, secondly, through the ‘DIY’ performance of ethnicised Hindu ritual in non-institutional settings

Britain: racial violence and the politics of hate

Drawing on empirical research into racist attacks in three cities in England, this article reveals a changing geography of racial violence (in terms of new areas and targets), and sets this in the context of the socially destructive impact of neoliberalism as well as government policies to manage the UK’s changing demographic make-up. With racial violence officially defined as a form of ‘hate crime’, it is divorced from any wider political context or racialised climate and reduced to a matter of individual pathology. The changing parameters of racism and the state’s responses present a challenge which the Left and anti-racists have been slow to meet

Between Choice and Stigma:Identifications of Economically Successful Migrants

In this contribution, we draw on the unusual but interesting comparison between ‘immigrants’ and ‘expats’, with the aim of scrutinizing identity construction and the tensions between stigma and identity of choice against the background of the (reluctant) superdiverse city of Rotterdam. We focus on two types of socioeconomically successful migrants which, despite their similarities in class position, are generally regarded as rather different. First, middle-class migrants and members of the second generation from ‘classic’ migration groups in the Netherlands (with roots in Surinam, Turkey and Morocco, including descendants of former guest workers). Second, expatriates or knowledge workers of various national backgrounds (including American, English, Indian, Chinese) who came to the Netherlands on a temporary basis because of their highly-skilled jobs (or the jobs of their partners, as we also included trailing spouses). We address the questions of how these migrants perceive themselves, how they think that others perceive them, and how discrepancies between these two affect their feelings of belonging in the city of Rotterdam and the Netherlands. Our findings suggest that while both ‘immigrants’ and ‘expatriates’ combine various identities, immigrants have more difficulty to adopt alternative identities (such as ‘cosmopolitan’) than expatriates because of their dominant label as ‘allochtoon’ (non-native Dutch).</p