Steven Vertovec

Super-diversity and its implications

Abstract Diversity in Britain is not what it used to be. Some thirty years of government policies, social service practices and public perceptions have been framed by a particular understanding of immigration and multicultural diversity. That is, Britains immigrant and ethnic minority population has conventionally been characterized by large, well-organized African-Caribbean and South Asian communities of citizens originally from Commonwealth countries or formerly colonial territories. Policy frameworks and public understanding – and, indeed, many areas of social science – have not caught up with recently emergent demographic and social patterns. Britain can now be characterized by ‘super-diversity,’ a notion intended to underline a level and kind of complexity surpassing anything the country has previously experienced. Such a condition is distinguished by a dynamic interplay of variables among an increased number of new, small and scattered, multiple-origin, transnationally connected, socio-economically differentiated and legally stratified immigrants who have arrived over the last decade. Outlined here, new patterns of super-diversity pose significant challenges for both policy and research.

Migrant Transnationalism and Modes of Transformation

Much of the literature on migrant transnationalism focuses on the ways that specific sociocultural institutions have been modified in the course of being stretched across the globe. Yet migrant transnational practices are involved in more deep-seated patterns of change or structural transformation. Such modes of transformation concern: 1) an enhanced ‘bifocality’ of outlooks underpinning migrant lives lived here-and-there; such dual orientations have considerable influence on transnational family life and may continue to affect identities among subsequent post-migration generations; 2) heightened challenges to ‘identities-borders-orders’ stemming from migrants’ political affiliations in more than one nation-state; these particularly arise around questions of dual citizenship and nationality; and 3) potentially profound impacts on economic development by way of the sheer scale and evolving means of remittance sending; money transfer services, hometown associations and micro-finance institutions represent three kinds of remittance-related organizations currently undergoing significant forms of adaptation with significant consequences for development. These modes of transformation, and the practices of migrant transnationalism surrounding them, both draw from and contribute to wider processes of globalization.

International Perspectives on Transnational Migration: An Introduction

This special issue of the International Migration Review on transnational migration represents both a victory and a challenge. For those who have advocated for the recognition of transnational migration, this publication is a victory in that it attests to the importance and growing acceptance of a transnational perspective among migration scholars. It is also a challenge because many of the criticisms raised initially by detractors have been quite valid. Making sense of transnational practices and placing them in proper perspec-

Migration and other modes of transnationalism: Towards conceptual cross-fertilization

Sociological notions such as social network, social capital and embeddedness have proven valuable when adopted into a wide variety of social scientific fields. This has certainly been the case in the sociology of migration. Similarly, certain concepts drawn from studies on different modes of transnationalism – for instance, research and theory concerning the global activities of social movements and business networks — might serve as useful tools for understanding transnational social forms and practices among migrant groups.

Multiculturalism, culturalism and public incorporation

Abstract In the name of ‘multiculturalism’, Western societies have witnessed since the 1980s a proliferation of discourses concerning the general place of minorities, programmes designed to foster equality, institutional structures created to provide better social services, and resources extended to ethnic minority organizations. Despite much goodwill and not inconsiderable evidence of progress in local and national initiatives concerning minorities, however, such developments have often in effect excluded minorities from, rather than facilitated their engagement with, the majority public domain. In significant ways this has been because many public policies and wider political discourses surrounding multiculturalism tend to employ ill‐defined ideas and implicit notions ‐ particularly regarding ‘culture’ ‐ which, when operationalized, function socially and politically to separate and distance members of given minorities. These ‘culturalist’ underpinnings found in a variety of multi‐culturalist initiatives...

Contextual effect of positive intergroup contact on outgroup prejudice

Significance Although mixed social environments can provoke conflict, where this diversity promotes positive intergroup contact, prejudice is reduced. Seven multilevel studies demonstrate that the benefits of intergroup contact are broader than previously thought. Contact not only changes attitudes for individuals experiencing direct positive intergroup contact, their attitudes are also influenced by the behavior (and norms) of fellow ingroup members in their social context. Even individuals experiencing no direct, face-to-face intergroup contact can benefit from living in mixed settings where fellow ingroup members do engage in such contact. Two longitudinal studies rule out selection bias as an explanation for these findings on the contextual level. Prejudice is a function not only of whom you interact with, but also of where you live. We assessed evidence for a contextual effect of positive intergroup contact, whereby the effect of intergroup contact between social contexts (the between-level effect) on outgroup prejudice is greater than the effect of individual-level contact within contexts (the within-level effect). Across seven large-scale surveys (five cross-sectional and two longitudinal), using multilevel analyses, we found a reliable contextual effect. This effect was found in multiple countries, operationalizing context at multiple levels (regions, districts, and neighborhoods), and with and without controlling for a range of demographic and context variables. In four studies (three cross-sectional and one longitudinal) we showed that the association between context-level contact and prejudice was largely mediated by more tolerant norms. In social contexts where positive contact with outgroups was more commonplace, norms supported such positive interactions between members of different groups. Thus, positive contact reduces prejudice on a macrolevel, whereby people are influenced by the behavior of others in their social context, not merely on a microscale, via individuals’ direct experience of positive contact with outgroup members. These findings reinforce the view that contact has a significant role to play in prejudice reduction, and has great policy potential as a means to improve intergroup relations, because it can simultaneously impact large numbers of people.

Introduction: New directions in the anthropology of migration and multiculturalism

Abstract It is a kind of boom time for the anthropology of migration. Anthropologists are currently studying a wide range of migration-related topics. Many of them, of course, are not entirely new: anthropologists have been researching migration dynamics and impacts since at least the 1930s (most notably within the Manchester School of anthropology). Since the 1970s the disciplines burgeoning interst in ethnicity has largely entailed research on post-migration communities. Since the 1990s, migrant transnationalism has become one of the most fashionable topics. There is still much to do in research and theory around migration, not least with regard to public debates around multiculturalism. This introduction suggests a number of possible new directions for anthropological inquiry into migration and multiculturalism, and summarizes the special issues contributing articles in light of their contributions toward moving the discipline in these directions.

Hindu Trinidad: Religion, ethnicity and socio-economic change

Indians outside India - Indian indentured migration and settlement overseas, three fundamental spheres of change among Indians overseas Indians in Trinidad - social consolidation, cultural homogenization, religious institutionalization socio-economic change socio-religious change contemporary Hindu practice. Appendix: emigration from India to Trinidad by District of Registration, 1881-1917.

Citizenship in European cities : immigrants, local politics and integration policies

Contents: Introduction: European cities and their new residents, Rinus Penninx, Karen Kraal, Marco Martiniello and Steven Vertovec The politics of minority-majority relations: how immigrant policies developed in Paris, Berlin and Zurich, Hans Mahnig Ethnic minority local councillors in French and British cities: social determinants and political opportunity structures, Romain Garbaye Comparing local policies toward migrants: an analytical framework, a typology and preliminary survey results, Michael Alexander Do immigrant policies matter? ethnic civic communities and immigrant policies in Amsterdam, Liege and Zurich, Meindert Fennema and Jean Tillie Top-down and bottom-up reconsidered: the dynamics of immigrant policies in local civil society, M. Margarida Marques and Rui Santos Migrants as mediators in a comparative perspective, Damian Moore Integration processes and policies: state of the art and lessons, Rinus Penninx and Marco Martiniello Index.

“Diversity” and the Social Imaginary

“Diversity” is the focus of a wide-ranging corpus of normative discourses, institutional structures, policies and practices in business, public sector agencies, the military, universities and professions. Here, a brief account of the rise and diffusion of the term is provided. It now addresses a wide variety of social differences, while at least six distinct facets or goals of diversity policy can be discerned. Ambiguity, multivocality and banality are key characteristics of diversity discourse, but these function to strengthen, rather than weaken, the spread and acceptance of the notion. In many settings the commitment to diversity is mainstreamed, expected, and even taken-for-granted. Diversity discourse is related to ongoing processes of social diversification, but its diffusion is not driven by these processes. Overall, despite its many imprecisions, the impacts of the diversity corpus entail a transformation, or at least refinement, of the social imaginary.