New Perspectives in Policy and Politics
This chapter analyses how local urban governance has come to incorporate migration-driven superdiversity in policies, mainly in the realm of mixed cultural and economic development policies. It looks at the case of the Mouraria neighbourhood in Lisbon, arguing that it is a site where a number of strategies have been identified to work towards new forms of accommodating old and new diversities to produce a specific cosmopolitan sense based on a ‘diversity advantage’ approach. Basically, the concept of ‘diversity advantage’ encapsulates the idea that diversity should be seen as a resource to be harnessed. It is intrinsically linked to cities’ innovative policies and to economic comparative advantage whenever diversity is utilised as an asset. The chapter considers how such linkages have come about in Lisbon, highlighting three urban strategies: de-ethnicisation of superdiversity and urban growth policies; aestheticisation of diversity and the rationale of the encounter; and place marketing and city branding.
This introductory chapter provides an overview of superdiversity. Patterns of migration to high-income countries until the 1990s mainly consisted of many migrants coming from a few countries to a small number of places. Around the turn of the 1990s, however, a new pattern of migration and associated diversification was observed. Since its inception, the concept of ‘superdiversity’ was meant to move beyond an observation of ethnic and national diversity, to capture the multidimensional aspect of the processes of diversification driven by new migration, including variables such as gender and age, faith, patterns of distribution, language, labour market experiences, and different immigration statuses. The chapter then considers the politics and governance of superdiversity.
This chapter examines whether, and if so, how and why, governance mainstreaming forms a suitable policy response to situations of superdiversity. The concept of governance refers to problem-solving strategies that are developed and implemented in complex networks of actors, including but certainly not limited to government institutions and government policies. The concept of governance mainstreaming has been developed more broadly in other areas such as gender, disability, and environmental governance. Building from this literature, the chapter defines mainstreaming of migration-related diversity as the effort to embed diversity in a generic approach across policy areas as well as policy levels, to establish a whole-society approach to diversity rather than an approach to specific migrant groups, in complex actor networks. The chapter then analyses patterns in the policy approaches to immigrant integration in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France from the conceptual lens of governance mainstreaming, and considers how and why mainstreaming was developed as a governance strategy, and what role superdiversity played in the rationale for and the choice of strategy towards mainstreaming.
This chapter begins by problematising the relationship between identity and difference as a way to rethink the dimensions and fluidity that superdiversity consists of. It provides a brief background of the debate on the death (or serious illness, or rebranding) of multiculturalism. The chapter then locates the specificities of superdiversity. It suggests the adoption of a superdiversity approach in the drafting of guidelines on diversity management such as the Common Basic Principles for Immigrant Integration Policy in the European Union (Council of the European Union, 2004) and the Action Plan on the Integration of Third Country Nationals (European Commission, 2016). The Roma minority(ies) in Europe serves as a useful case study to exemplify how superdiversity can help us depart from the dominance of ethnicity as the main category for identity policy without negating its relevance, in order to encourage the development of inclusive policies towards minority groups and neighbourhoods that take into account multiple variables.
This chapter critically assesses an ‘intercultural policy turn’ evident in many European cities. It identifies the drivers of this turn and asks whether an intercultural policy approach to immigrant integration is an adequate response to the growing reality of superdiversity in urban spaces. The chapter is in conversation with the rich scholarship on immigrant integration in Europe in the political and social sciences. Integration is about ‘imagining what the state can actively do to “nationalize” newcomers and re-constitute the nation-state under conditions of growing cultural diversity’. This cultural diversity has become an increasing phenomenon which policymakers in Europe have struggled to come to terms with. The growing diversification of society is particularly evident in cities: places where international migrants mostly settle. An increasing number of cities are not only ethno-culturally diverse, but they have become superdiverse spaces and home to people who vary not only as with regards to their ethnic, national, religious, and linguistic backgrounds, but also with relation to age, gender, migration status, as well as varying degrees of transnational ties, resulting in a complex composition of society. Population groups are not only different from each other but also exhibit significant internal diversity.
This chapter discusses whether the policies aimed at protecting the historical traditional minorities in South Tyrol help or hinder the creation of a tolerant and pluralistic society, and enable a defensive approach so far adopted by the South Tyrol authorities towards migration and the cultural diversity of migrants and their families. It relies primarily on the analysis of legal and policy documents, and judgments of national and international courts as well previous literature and empirical studies on South Tyrol. The chapter focuses on the competences of the South Tyrolean authorities and the measures introduced by them as regards integration and inclusion. It also looks at several recent rulings, concerning the Province of Bozen/Bolzano, by the Italian Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice. The chapter concludes with observations on how to develop a defensible framework for the management of new and more complex forms of diversity at the subnational autonomous level in, but also beyond, the South Tyrolean case that reconciles unity and diversity and that overcomes, at the same time, the traditional ‘old–new’ minority dichotomy.
This chapter assesses how the urban setting conditions emerging us/them distinctions at neighbourhood level. This analysis involves paying particular attention to the nature and make-up of backlash narratives, as these essentially represent localised responses to changing power dynamics and resource allocations. The chapter draws on findings from fieldwork carried out at neighbourhood level in three European cities: Barcelona, London, and Turin. It discusses the conceptualisations of the post-industrial city, with particular emphasis on the application of Edward Soja’s multiscalar view of the city. The chapter then looks at the relationship between post-industrial urban dynamics and emerging backlash narratives in the six selected neighbourhoods. Finally, it examines how one-off neighbourhood forums staged in each neighbourhood served to verify research findings while also providing insights into inter-group relations at neighbourhood level.
This chapter, building on a comparative study of immigration policies at the urban level in Europe, addresses the present state of multiculturalist approaches and their adaptations at the local level after the ‘multiculturalism backlash’ in most political discourse. In recent years, immigration policies in most European countries have been intended to reaffirm both the control of external borders and the values of identity and national belonging, and particularly so since 2001. Especially in the case of non-skilled, third country nationals, this approach can be defined as neo-assimilationist. This change in immigration policies goes hand in hand with growing disaffection with multiculturalism, at least as a discourse, in the European political debate. The chapter then analyses the relations between national frameworks and urban policies, the changing labels and the forms of continuity of local immigration policies, the involvement of civil society actors, and the appearance of local policies of exclusion. It suggests that diversity could be the new framework within which multiculturalist stances can be reshaped.
Immigration has transformed the social, economic, political and cultural landscapes of global cities such as London, Melbourne, Milan and Amsterdam. The term ‘superdiversity’ captures a new era of migration-driven demographic diversifications and associated complexities. Superdiversity is the future or, in many cases, the current reality of neighbourhoods, cities, countries and regions, yet the implications of superdiversification for governance and policy have, until now, received very little attention.
First published as a special issue of Policy & Politics, this insightful volume brings together contributions from experts across Europe to explore the ways in which superdiversity has shaped the development of policy and to consider challenges for the future.
This chapter assesses transmigration. Within the fields of migration studies and superdiversity, transmigration and its impact on social policy are still underexplored. Yet, the rising number of transmigrants within Europe — from outside the EU as well as intra-EU-mobility — does not only challenge ideas of belonging and integration, but also existing concepts of governance and social policy. By foregrounding the cases of Brazilian, Ghanaian, and Moroccan transmigrants residing in Belgium in 2014–15, the chapter contributes to a scientific debate regarding these topics. It presents the results of a research project in the two main superdiverse Belgian cities (Brussels and Antwerp), focusing on the social problems and vulnerabilities that relate to transmigration and its inherent temporality and the way that these are experienced and addressed by social workers in superdiverse urban areas within policy frameworks that often do not (yet) recognise the changing context.
