Super-diverse street: a ‘trans-ethnography’ across migrant localities

Abstract

This paper emerges from an ethnography of the economic and cultural life of Rye Lane, an intensely multi-ethnic street in Peckham, South London. The effects of accelerated migration into London are explored through the reshaping and diversification of its interior, street and city spaces. A ‘trans-ethnography’ is pursued across the compendium of micro-, meso- and macro-urban spaces, without reifying one above the other. The ethnographic stretch across intimate, collective and symbolic city spaces serves to connect how the restrictions and circuits of urban migration have different impacts and expressions in these distinctive but interrelated urban localities. The paper argues for a trans-ethnography that engages within and across a compendium of urban localities, to understand how accelerated migration and urban ‘super-diversity’ transform the contemporary global city.

Keywords:

• city
• migration
• super-diversity
• locality
• ethnography
• street

Acknowledgments

This paper is part of the ‘Ordinary Streets’ project based at LSE Cities. The research has been carried out by an energetic and talented interdisciplinary team, and my thanks extend to Antoine Paccoud, Nicolas Palominos, Sadiq Toffa and Adriana Valdez Young. Thank you to Ricky Burdett for key insights and directions during the project' progress. My colleagues David Madden and Austin Zeiderman provided key comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

1. http://www.westernunion.co.uk

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Suzanne M. Hall

SUZANNE HALL is a Researcher at LSE Cities in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Social Science.