Making the most of super-diversity: notes on the potential of a new approach

• Published in: Policy and politics Vol. 45; no. 4; pp. 527 - 545
• Main Author: Magazzini, Tina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Policy Press 01.10.2017; The Policy Press
• Subjects: Difference; Ethnicity; Gender; Identity; Migration; Minority groups; Multiculturalism; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Ontology; Super-Diversity; difference; multiculturalism; super-diversity; identity
• ISSN: 0305-5736; 1470-8442
• DOI: 10.1332/030557317X14972819300753

This article aims at exploring how 'super-diversity' can cover aspects of current debates that traditional ways of understanding identity and multiculturalism could not. I start by engaging with Gilles Deleuze's differential ontology, which conceptualises difference as an inherent feature of identity and not some 'issue' brought by migration flows. I then outline super-diversity's potential implications for diversity management, with particular attention to the case of Roma minorities in Europe. The main argument is that super-diversity can provide a promising framework to address some of multiculturalism's constraints, if we focus on the new kind, rather than the new level, of complexity.