Stijn Oosterlynck

Symbolic boundary making in super-diverse deprived neighbourhoods

Neighbourhood‐based research on the rise of super‐diverse cities has mostly focused on the implications of living in super‐diverse neighbourhoods for individual relations, and paid little attention to processes of group formation. This paper focuses on how residents of super‐diverse neighbourhoods identify social groups. Drawing on the concept of symbolic boundary making, it provides insights into how residents draw, enact and experience boundaries. Using the results of in‐depth interviews with residents in Antwerp and Rotterdam, we show that super‐diversity complexifies but does not counteract group formation. Residents draw multiple, interrelated symbolic boundaries along ethnic, class and religious lines and lines based on length of residence, which are sometimes used interchangeably. We also show that group boundaries are dynamic and constantly (re‐)created. Finally, we show that discursive boundaries do not necessarily lead to less social contact across these boundaries, thus illustrating that symbolic boundaries do not always result in segregated social patterns.

Parity of participation and the politics of needs interpretation: Engagement with Roma migrants in Manchester.

Service providers in Western welfare states have to engage with an increasingly differentiated citizenry. The arrival of new migrant communities triggers debates, negotiations and struggles over the needs of these communities and how service providers can engage with them. In this paper, we look at these processes of developing local social inclusion policies that target migrant communities through the perspective of Nancy Frasers ‘politics of need interpretation’. More specifically, we analyse Roma engagement strategies in Manchester. We do so by reconstructing how the presence of Romanian Roma emerged as a public issue leading to various engagement strategies and how different actors competed over the interpretation of the needs of the Roma community and the best ways to respond to them. We use Frasers notion of ‘parity of participation’ to draw attention to the position of the Roma community itself in the process of interpreting needs.