The social organization of difference

Rapidly diversifying societies, rising inequalities and the increasing significance of social differences are concurrent processes calling for a reexamination and reworking of certain conceptual and theoretical tools within the social sciences. Here, bringing together a range of theories and findings from various disciplines, a conceptual model is offered to facilitate analyses of such intertwined social processes. The model highlights mutually conditioning relationships between the fundamental conceptual domains of: social structures (here described as configurations), social categories (or representations) and social interactions (or encounters). The connections between these domains produce and reproduce, differentially in distinct times, scales and contexts, what can be called “the social organization of difference”

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 and social complexity

Based on a keynote lecture1, this paper places the superdiversity concept in relation to certain ideas surrounding complexity theory. Further, the implications of superdiversity for social stratification processes are stressed. Finally, with a view towards superdiversity and university environments, key features of social identity complexity theory are also related to both superdiversity and complexity theory, pointing to ways that promoting the recognition of individuals’ multiple characteristics can bring about a number of positive outcomes