Super-diversity as a methodological lens: re-centring power and inequality

ABSTRACT

Super-diversity as a methodological lens calls for a study of dynamics of new and diversified social groups that moves away from more traditional approaches focused on ethnicity. In examining the potential of super-diversity as a methodological lens, I identify a risk of downplaying the effect of “old” categories of difference that are likely to continue to shape social structures as well as space. I propose a re-centring of power and inequality in the study of super-diversity by situating its study within an urban culturalist approach, with sociological tools borrowed from ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism. This proposal is illustrated through the analysis of two public spaces in a super-diverse New York neighbourhood. I conclude by raising questions about the use of super-diversity discourse in the public and policy spheres.

KEYWORDS:

• Super-diversity
• diversity
• methodology
• inequality
• public space
• New York

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the four anonymous reviewers and the participants of the Workshop on Superdiversity: A Transatlantic Conversation, where an earlier version of this paper was presented.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Gender, too, is key to understanding power dynamics in the community garden and beyond, but I limit my discussion to race and class here.

Additional information

Funding

Research for this article was undertaken within the GlobaldiverCities Project (http://www.mmg.mpg.de/subsites/globaldivercities/about/) funded by the European Research Council Advanced Grant [269784], awarded to Prof. Steven Vertovec and based at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany (www.mmg.mpg.de).