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Working Paperswww.mmg.mpg.de/workingpapers

MMG Working Paper 11-08 ISSN 2192-2357

Steven vertovec

Migration and New Diversities in

Global Cities: Comparatively Conceiving,

Observing and Visualizing Diversication

in Urban Public Spaces

MaxPlanckInstitute

fortheStudy

of

Religio

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Diversity

Max-P

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undmultiethnischerGesellschaften


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Steven Vertovec

Migration and New Diversities in Global Cities: Comparatively Conceiving, Observing and

Visualizing Diversication in Urban Public Spaces

MMG Working Paper 11-08

Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung multireligiser und multiethnischer Gesellschaften,

Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity

Gttingen

2011 by the author

ISSN 2192-2357 (MMG Working Papers Print)

Working Papers are the work of staff members as well as visitors to the Institutes events. The

analyses and opinions presented in the papers do not reect those of the Institute but are those

of the author alone.

Download: www.mmg.mpg.de/workingpapers

MPI zur Erforschung multireligiser und multiethnischer Gesellschaften

MPI for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Gttingen

Hermann-Fge-Weg 11, 37073 Gttingen, Germany

Tel.: +49 (551) 4956 - 0

Fax: +49 (551) 4956 - 170

www.mmg.mpg.de

[email protected]


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Abstract

How can people with ever more diverse characteristics live together in the worlds

rapidly expanding cities? The UN estimates a doubling o world urban population by

2050. Meanwhile, global migration fows show proound diversication o migrants

nationality, ethnicity, language, gender, age, human capital and legal status. Every-

where, migrants with complex new diversity traits dwell in cities alongside people

rom previous, old diversity waves. The dynamics o diversication despite their

increasing ubiquity remain seriously under-researched. We know little about how

people in diversiying urban settings create new patterns o coexistence, or how and

why they might tend towards confict.

This Working Paper provides the background or the GLOBALDIVERCITIES

project, which is unded or ve years rom 2011 by the European Research Council

under its scheme or Advanced Investigator Grants. The GLOBALDIVERCITIES

projects core research question is: in public spaces compared across cities, what

accounts or similarities and dierences in social and spatial patterns that arise

under conditions o diversication, when new diversity-meets-old diversity? The

project entails inter-disciplinary, multi-method research in New York (a classic city

o immigration with new global migrant fows in a broadly supportive political con-

text), Singapore (dominated by racial-cultural politics, and wholly dependent on new,highly restricted migrants), and Johannesburg (emerging rom Apartheid with ten-

sions around new and unregulated pan-Arican migrant fows). Spanning the elds

o anthropology and human geography to research the changing nature o diversity

and its socio-spatial patterns, strategic methods entail conceiving (exploring how

old and new diversities are locally understood), observing (producing ethnographies

o interaction) and visualizing (using images and innovative data mapping). Antici-

pated ndings will signicantly advance social scientic understanding o numerous,

ar-reaching global trends surrounding urbanization and social diversication.

Author

Steven vertovec is Director o the Max Planck Institute or the Study o Reli-

gious and Ethnic Diversity (MMG), Gttingen, and Head o its Department or

Socio-Cultural Diversity.

[email protected]
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Contents

Introduction....................................................................................................... 7

Urbanization and Diversication ....................................................................... 7

Diversity in the City ........................................................................................... 10

The GLOBALDIVERCITIES Project ................................................................. 12

Methodology............................................................................................. 13

Research Sites ........................................................................................... 15

New York .............................................................................................. 16

Singapore .............................................................................................. 17

Johannesburg......................................................................................... 18

Value o comparison ................................................................................. 20

Research methods ..................................................................................... 21

Conceiving............................................................................................. 21

Observing .............................................................................................. 23

Visualizing ............................................................................................ 24

Expected outcomes ............................................................................................ 27

Reerences Cited ................................................................................................ 29
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Introduction

THE COMING QUESTION OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, surmised

Stuart Hall (1993: 359), is how to ashion the capacity to live with dierence.

Although it was made almost twenty years ago, this conjecture has increasingly

gained worldwide signicance in light o the proound contemporary acceleration

o urbanization and the transormation o international migration. Across the globe,

more people, rom more varied backgrounds, are coming into regular contact with

one another in todays growing cities. In dense urban settings where new and extra-

ordinary patterns o diversication are most evident, what circumstances acilitate

civility and cooperation between prior residents and newcomers, and what condi-

tions contribute toward tension and confict? Right now, these questions underline

an urgent need to sharpen better social scientic understandings, and consequently

to develop better-inormed social policies concerning the ways that people can live

positively together with ever-more socially and culturally dierentiated others. This

pertains especially to urban settings, where remarkable processes o diversication

are most evident.

By way o addressing these issues, a team at the Max Planck Institute or the

Study o Religious and Ethnic Diversity have embarked on a large new project:

GLOBALDIVERCITIES. This Working Paper provides the background refec-tions, research objectives, methodology and anticipated outcomes surrounding the

GLOBALDIVERCITIES project.

Urbanization and Diversication

United Nations statistics

show that world urban

population is expected

to nearly double by 2050

(UN-DESA 2008a). Fur-

ther, 70% o worlds popu-

lation will be urban by

2050 (compared to only

10% a hundred years ago).

Urban and rural populations o the world,

1950-2050 (UN-DESA 2008a)
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Vertovec: Migration and New Diversities in Global Cities / MMG WP 11-088

Indeed, the growth o the worlds population will concentrate almost exclusively in

urban areas.

Everywhere, in mega-cities and moderate-sized cities, developed and developing

regions, migration is a key driver o rapid urbanization. Whether involving move-

ments rom the other side o the world, rom across an immediate border or rom

rural hinterlands within the same nation-state (which nevertheless usually entails the

movement o individuals with considerable ethnic, linguistic and other social die-

rences), migration patterns over the past thirty years maniest marked patterns o

diversication.

Agencies including the World Bank, the UN Population Division and the Inter-

national Organization or Migration have each highlighted the on-going diversi-

cation o global migration, especially by way o migrants countries o origin and

channels o migration. Indeed, according to the latter diversication o migration

fows and stocks is the new watchword or the current dynamics (IOM 2003: 4).

The increasing complexity o international migration over the last three decades,

especially in terms o source areas, transit routes, destination countries, channels o

migration, and the social characteristics o people who move has led to the emer-

gence o conditions that I have termed super-diversity (Vertovec 2007a). Coupled

with rapid urban growth, the emergence o super-diversity poses signicant social

scientic questions and urgent public policy challenges. Whereas post-war global

migration until the 1980s was comprised mainly o large numbers movingrom par-

ticular places to particular places (e.g., Algeria-France, Turkey-Germany, Pakistan-

UK, Morocco-Netherlands, Mexico-USA), since the 1980s we have witnessed more

people in small numbers moving rom many places to many places (Vertovec 2010a:

3,4). Further, a range o contemporary migration fows are made up o dierent pro-

portions o people in terms o gender, age, and human capital. Meanwhile in most

receiving countries over the past two decades, there have been signicant changes

to as well as a prolieration o, immigrant legal statuses (including variations withinthe categories o political asylum-seekers, designated reugees, workers with vari-

ous kinds o visas, reunited amily members, highly skilled migrants, entrepreneurs,

students, temporary or restricted residents, undocumented persons, and people who

have slipped between legal statuses). Dierentially across many contexts, such diver-

sication has brought about new patterns o inequality, segregation and prejudice,

new experiences o space and contact, and new practices o cosmopolitanism, creoli-

zation and conviviality (Vertovec 2007a).
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Vertovec: Migration and New Diversities in Global Cities / MMG WP 11-08 9

Another important eature o super-diversity is that, since new migrants tend to

inhabit those urban spaces which still play host to migrants rom previous waves, the

new complexities are layered on top o pre-existing patterns o diversity (including

the socio-economic positions and geographical concentrations, social policies, daily

interactions and physical environments that developed around the pre-existing pat-

terns). How do prior conditions o diversity aect the incorporation o new migrants

who are characterized by signicantly dierent traits?

The world over, or those cities experiencing rapid urbanization, multi-cultura-

lism is a act, but without the guarantees that interactions will be peaceul, produc-

tive, or characterized by mutual respect. In many instances, the opposite has been

true (Landau 2008: 172). Social scientists have yet to ully describe and theorize the

dynamics and implications o diversication and super-diversity, especially in the

key urban spaces where new migrants mostly live. While the increased complexity

o migration brings acute challenges or governance (UN-Habitat 2005: vii) with

respect to economic development, housing, planning, health and social services,

clearly, the current understanding o international migration in an urban environ-

ment is inadequate (Ibid.: 3).

Beyond conventional migration, ethnic and racial studies, the comparative study

o diversity o perceptions, congurations, inequalities, interactions, spatial mani-

estations, and o policy responses surrounding social and cultural dierences represents a signicant and growing topic o cross-disciplinary interest in the social

sciences. Numerous conerences, postgraduate degrees and courses, books and jour-

nals have recently developed around the topic. This is especially due to the kinds o

issues raised by new orms o complexity or as suggested above the conjuncture

o new orms meeting old orms. Hence the latest UNESCO World Report, which is

devoted exclusively to diversity issues, states that cultural diversity has emerged as a

key concern at the turn o a new century (UNESCO 2009: 1). In light o increasing

global complexities, UNESCO observes how the political establishment has in thisway ound itsel challenged, and cultural diversity has taken its place on the political

agenda in most countries o the world (Ibid.: 4).

In these ways policy-makers and social scientists are converging on Stuart Halls

question at the beginning o this working paper. To elaborate: over the next century,

as cities the world over grow extraordinarily and new, highly dierentiated immi-

grants come to live alongside previous immigrants, their descendants and longstand-

ing residents, how can we learn more about relevant social processes so as to help

ensure better coexistence and civility rather than more competition and confict?
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Diversity in the City

The current state-o-the-art is insucient or advanced analyses o contemporary

and uture conditions o diversity. Theories and methods used to study immigrants

in urban settings are still largely based on those o the Chicago school o urban

studies that were set out in the early and mid-part o the last century (Waters and

Jimnez 2005). This primarily entails looking at particular, ethnically-dened groups

by way o their respective processes o assimilation, measured in terms o changing

socio-economic status, spatial concentration, linguistic change and intermarriage.

The ocus on assimilation or, in European parlance, integration dominates the

eld, and is currently the oremost policy concern o most immigrant-receiving states

(or, indeed, European-level agencies). Theory and research on multiculturalism has

also tended to rely on a view o society as comprised o distinct ethnic groups living

side-by-side and developing on their own terms (see Vertovec and Wessendor 2006).

To the extent that interethnic or intercultural relations have been examined, this has

usually concerned binary minority-majority relations. However, as a UN-Habitat

Report (2005: 9) recognizes, it is quite possible that today, migrants are transorming

the city to a point where the time honoured assimilation vs. multicultural (ethnic)

alternative loses its heuristic value.

Much more rare but necessary, given the kind o global processes mentionedabove are micro-accounts o the nature and impacts o the existence o multiple

dierences, socio-economic positions and relations between an array o groups

within a common context. That is to say: the social scientic study o diversity itsel

is seriously under-researched and under-theorized.

In keeping with the longstanding assimilation paradigm in migration studies, it has

oten been assumed that social cohesion requires some orm o homogeneity, which

is consequently upset by diversication (c. Vertovec 1999; such a view is reinorced

by Robert Putnams recent interventions, e.g. Putnam 2007). However, this assump-tion does not always ring true. For instance, drawing on studies o 14 neighbour-

hoods across the U.S., Philip Nyden and his colleagues (1998b: 265) show that stable

diverse communities are not a gment o a progressive policy researchers imagina-

tionthey do exist. This is reiterated in Logan and Zhangs (2010) recent study o

new diversity and the rise o global neighborhoods. Indeed, There are plenty o

neighbourhoods, as Ash Amin writes (2002, p. 960), in which multiethnicity has

not resulted in social breakdown, so ethnic mixture itsel does not oer a compelling

explanation or ailure. In order to oster a better understanding o the dynamics


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o diversity and how diversity might actually create new orms o social cohesion,

Amin (2002) calls or an anthropology o local micro politics o everyday interaction

akin to what Leonie Sandercock (2003, p. 89) sees as daily habits o perhaps quite

banal intercultural interaction. Such interaction, I contend, should be additionally

looked at in terms o the multiple variables o super-diversity mentioned above (gen-

der, age, human capital, and legal status), and not solely in terms o basic ethnic or

racial categories.

There have indeed been quantitative attempts to gauge diversity and to derive and

evaluate measures o multi-group dynamics locally, not just in ethnic terms, but also

with respect to variables such as age, income and occupational types (e.g., Reardon

and Firebaugh 2002, Maly 2002). Yet it is essential to develop more and better quali-

tative studies o social interactions within contexts o super-diversity. For instance,

such a need became clear in the infuential Report on the 2001 riots in Oldham, UK

(Home Oce 2001). The Report ollowing which the government implemented a

range o new policies painted a now inamous picture o groups living parallel

lives that do not touch or overlap by way o meaningul interchanges. But social

scientists to say nothing o civil servants have ew accounts o what meaningul

interchanges between multiple groups look like, how they are ormed, maintained or

broken, and how the state or other agencies might best promote them. While there

are a ew good studies o relations within diverse contexts (such as Lamphere 1992,Baumann 1996, Sanjek 1998, Maly 2005; c. Vertovec 2010b), they have ocused

solely on ethnicity; urther, they do not examine how new patterns o immigrant-led

diversication have been encountered in places where pre-existing patterns and expe-

riences o diversity already exist.

Thereore there is much to be learned by examining places and processes where

peoples variegated engagement with diversication challenges or transorms pre-

existing social patterns to establish new norms o living together, or new ault-lines o

tension. Proper study should entail detailed, multi-modal research on how increasedand ever-more complex acets o diversity are encountered and responded to, by a

range o actors in specic public spaces. Here, and or the purposes o this project,

I reer to public spaces as physical settings especially streets, squares, parks and

markets which are in principle accessible to all regardless o background (gender,

age, ethnicity, legal status, disability, etc.). In this sense the meaning is distinct rom

thepublic sphere, which I take as a domain o discourse and deliberation such as

political institutions and media. Public spaces are key to examining encounters o

diversity (Low et al. 2005). It is known that increased tolerance oten accompanies
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increased diversity by way o increased contact (see, inter alia, Hewstone 2009); how-

ever, much more attention should be given to the public contexts that may oster or

limit contact, participation and networking opportunities (Talen 2010).

Moreover, local residents are usually very aware o the values, challenges and prob-

lems posed by new or increasing diversity, and their concerns are oten tied directly to

visible, physical/inrastructural/spatial actors (or instance transportation, availabi-

lity o collective acilities, upkeep o common resources, uneven economic develop-

ment or mobility, or lack o control in planning and design). Importantly, social inter-

actions themselves are infuenced by relations to materials and physical conditions

in an immediate environment. This entails examining how people dene their dier-

ences in relationship to uneven material and spatial conditions. Such an approach is

also to be ound in the emerging eld o the spatiality o complexity, which empha-

sizes how the spatial conguration o a system may be key to understanding and

anticipating its behaviour (OSullivan et al. 2006: 612). Here, with much to contrib-

ute to the examination o diversication, the joint approach is towards analyzing

interactions between actors themselves and between actors and their environment.

The scope or analysis concerns: the ways structures and patterns emerge through

negotiated social relations; the reormulation o physical environments; and vari-

able relations to public space, as well as the uses and experiences thereo. Through

such encounters in public space, however feeting, everyday conventions and ormso civility are ormed, shaped and maintained (Vertovec 2007b). Drawing upon and

advancing this line o inquiry vis--vis the state-o-the-art in migration and ethnic

studies, new research on encounters o diversity in public spaces will have signicant

lessons or social theory as well as public policy (including community development,

planning and social services).

The GLOBALDIVERCITIES Project

Having received unding rom the European Research Council under its Advanced

Investigators scheme, the GLOBALDIVERCITIES project commenced in July 2011

with the research question: in public spaces compared across cities, what accounts or

similarities and dierences in social and spatial patterns that arise under conditions o

diversifcation, when new diversity-meets-old diversity?

This question calls or a number o dierent lines o investigation including inquiry

into: the nature opublic spaces, how their multiple uses and meanings arise among
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various groups in dierent kinds o cities; legacies ohistorical conditions, how diver-

sity has been conceived, comprised, and managed by public authorities and local

actors, and, importantly, how historical and current dynamics relate to structures of

inequality; eects ophysical environments and material phenomena (e.g. commercial,

industrial, service and leisure inrastructure, spatial layout, housing access, building

conditions, commodities), how they condition, constrain and create opportunities

or social and spatial relationships; and patterns ofsocial interaction feeting and

sustained how they develop through avoidance, intermingling, co-dependence and

civility, and how new ault-lines o tension or confict arise.

The question ocuses on dierent maniestations o diversity. Old diversity is

a shorthand or describing longstanding patterns o social and cultural dierence

around which particular societal and importantly, state systems have developed

(e.g., policies o exclusion or access, multi-ethnic residence or segregation, ethnic

economies, and relationships o co-dependence or dispute). New diversity (or super-

diversity) reers to more recent milieus marked by on-going shits in migration pat-

terns (concerning national origins, ethnicity, language, religion, gender, age, human

capital and legal status). In numerous contexts around the world, new migrant diver-

sities are now being layered upon pre-existing, yet oten undamentally dissimilar,

conditions o diversity. At the core o the projects research question are more un-

damental questions: what does diversication and diversity as such look like andmean to those o various backgrounds who dwell within it? Despite highly diering

conditions, are their common patterns o social adjustment to diversication? How

can urban policies oster or support positive patterns o adjustment? In order to pro-

vide the best, most orward-thinking answers to these questions, research requires a

robust comparative, strategic and multi-method design.

Methodology

Going back at least to Simmel, the city and its spaces have been regarded by social

scientists as key sites o encounter between strangers. Yet, as noted above, migration

and ethnic studies have largely concentrated on understanding integration processes

o immigrants, their community development, transnational practices, and usually

binary inter-ethnic relations between given groups. There exist, surprisingly, very ew

studies o diversity as such; nor is there much social scientic work on the nature,

unction and impacts o multiple encounters among people o diverse backgrounds

in contemporary city spaces.
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The GLOBALDIVERCITIES project takes as its starting points the ollowing

premises:

Migrant dynamics are inherently tied to the transormation o urban political

economies; migrants are drawn by and contribute strongly to such transorma-

tions (e.g., Sassen 2008, Samers 2002, Price and Benton-Short 2008, Glick-Schiller

and Caglar 2009).

Around the world, the past three decades have witnessed a proound diversi-

cation o migration fows, observable directly in specic urban sites and public

spaces where new migrants settle (Vertovec 2007a,b, 2010b);

Immigrants largely learn social codes and negotiate their places in new settings

through everyday encounters in key public spaces such as parks, markets and

streets; moreover, these are usually the same sites inhabited by previous migrants

and their descendants (Vertovec 2007b). Research on (new) migrant- (old) migrant

relations is rare;

Migrants contribute to the shaping o public spaces not just through social prac-

tices, but through physical and material transormations, oten refecting tran-

snational ties (Vertovec 2009). Hence new migrant diversities in cities can be

approached in terms o what John Urry (2003: 138) calls the dialectic o moorings

andmobilities whereby social lie seems to be increasingly constituted through

material worlds that involve new and distinct moorings that enable, produce andpresuppose extensive new mobilities;

Public spaces directly condition encounters (through public regulations, physical

congurations and material conditions). Moreover, such spaces have the poten-

tial to be mutually negotiated in terms o conguration and use (e.g., Amin 2002,

2008, Watson 2006a,b);

Within the same public spaces, we need to account or a wide range o interactions,

since people interact dierently with dierent people, at dierent times, or die-

rent reasons. Especially in dense urban settings, interaction in public space is otenfeeting; feeting encounters with strangers, however, underpin much by way o

everyday experience, out-group attitude ormation, and broader modes o civility

(Lofand 1973, 1998). The nature and impacts o such variegated, feeting encoun-

ters and their relation to more sustained and meaningul social relationships and

social structures is also a comparatively understudied eld, particularly with

regard to diversity issues;

To understand better how diverse encounters in urban public spaces unction, we

must study how they unold in the entanglement between people and the mate-
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rial and visual culture o public space, rather than solely in the quality o social

interaction between strangers (Amin 2008: 8). Further, public spaces are not neu-

tral. They are lled with signs, symbols and markers that are variously read by

socially positioned and culturally distinct people. In this way, public spaces mean

completely dierent things or dierent groups (Lownsbrough & Beunderman

2007: 19). Research on diversity in public space should concern social processes

that make spaces into places, with conficts over access and control o space, and

with the values and meaning people attach to place (Low et al. 2005: 3).

Following these premises, the GLOBALDIVERCITIES research plan represents at

once: a signicant and pressing topic, an innovative approach, new multi-discipli-

nary techniques and comparative data that will underscore a convincing analysis.The project is sure to open up new understandings o several areas o study espe-

cially concerning the nature o diversication and peoples responses to it, the rela-

tions between diverse groups and their environments, and contemporary trends that

will likely eect the uture o many cities across the planet.

Research Sites

The GLOBALDIVERCITIES research question is undamentally based on a com-

parative approach across cities where specic historical and contemporary condi-

tions o diversifcation and patterns onew diversity-meets-old diversity arise. Drawn

rom an array o possible contexts, the sites or comparison in the GLOBALDIVER-

CITIES project have been specically chosen or a number o reasons. Processes o

diversication and the layering o old and new diversities are understudied. There-

ore, the choice o cities has been made according to diverse case selection strat-diverse case selection strat-

egy in order to take account o multiple variables leading to typological theorizing

(Gerring 2007). Here, variables reer to possible modes, constraints and opportuni-

ties o diversity encounter. The selection thus refects the dierentiated historical

and political-economic circumstances behind the changing patterns and politics o

diversity in cities and neighbourhoods, with discrete conditions shaping trajectories,

layers o diversity and the social relations deriving rom them. It is proposed that

looking at diversication in key global cities will take on an increasing relevance as

more and more cities come to resemble them in important ways, especially in terms

o increasing economic, demographic and cultural fows. The project is not, however,

directly concerning with testing hypotheses or interrogating theories o global cities.
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In each case city, the choice o neighbourhoods has been made with attention to con-

texts in which new super-diversity is evident, where no single group dominates, and

where (physical/spatial, visual and social) maniestations o old and new diversities

can be seen to meet. The public spaces within each are expected to oer common

sites or feeting and more sustained encounters embodying processes o stress along-

side processes maniesting the construction o new, common and productive modes

o interaction.

New York

Ethnic diversity is the expectation in New York (Foner 2008: 65). It is the classic

city o immigration and, as the countrys oremost port o entry, has historically

received several waves o newcomers. Already in 1900, 37% o the citys population

was oreign-born. Over decades upon decades o infux, a unique social and political

culture has been created around the absorption o successive waves o immigrants.

The latest data rom the New York Department o City Planning show that, within

o a population o just over 8 million, oreign-born residents comprise 36% o the

city. Given New Yorks long history o welcoming and absorbing immigrants, it is

not surprising that the citys ocial commitment to cultural pluralism and cultural

diversity stands out (Foner 2010: 44).

Whats more, besides the inherent place o immigration in the citys heritage, thereis much new about it. New York Citys oreign-born population has doubled in the

past thirty years. In addition, groups are coming rom places whence they had never

come beore. Breaking rom the pattern o successive waves rom dierent places

(Ireland, Italy, Blacks rom the southern USA, Mexico, etc.), extraordinary diver-

sity is the hallmark o contemporary immigration to New York. It is oten said that

today, virtually every country in the world is represented by recent migrants to the

city. In the New York 2000 census, the top sending countries were Dominican Repub-

lic, China and Jamaica together accounting or less than 30% o immigrant infow;the remainder included every region in the world, with no other group accounting

or more than 5%. There is now an incredible ethnic mix that results rom the com-

bination o the citys immigrant history and the current infows (Foner 2008: 65).

In addition to diversied places o origin, there has been an increased heterogeneity

o human capital, occupational and class backgrounds, indicative o diering migra-

tion processes, channels, legal statuses and transnational practices. For instance,

women outnumber men in nearly all oreign-born groups (with important exceptions

including Mexicans and Bangladeshis, among whom there are ar more men). Thus
mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08mailto:Vertovec%40mmg.mpg.de?subject=WP_11-08


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in a number o ways, i present-day New York City has been shaped by its immi-

grant past, it is also being remade by the latest arrivals (Ibid.).

Each Borough o New York has a unique mix o old and new diversities. Queens

is one o the most renowned, where 46% o one million people are oreign-born.

Emblematic o diversication in the city as a whole, the oreign-born population o

Queens increased 6.3% between 2000 and 2006, comprising a wide array o countries

o origin with no group dominating. The site or GLOBALDIVERCITIES project

research will be the Queens district o Astoria: here, within the 2008 total popula-

tion estimate o 211,220, over 46% are oreign born. In Astoria the largest country

o birth cohort is Greece (9.8%), ollowed by Bangladesh (7.8%), Ecuador (7.4%),

Mexico (7.3%), Colombia (5.7%), Italy (5.1%), Dominican Republic (3.7%), Brazil

(3.7%), China (3.4%), and India (2.9%); the rest no less than 43.1% is comprised

o smaller cohorts rom all over the world. Field sites will importantly ocus on key

public spaces including commercial streets such as 30th Avenue, Astoria Park, Arrow

Park Community Gardens and Green Market. In New York, the GLOBALDIVER-

CITIES team will work closely with Pro. Nancy Foner and colleagues at the City

University o New York (CUNY).

Singapore

Since colonial times, Singapore has been a highly regulated multi-ethnic city. Politicsand public images are based on the ocial multiracial CMIO model (Chinese, Malay,

Indian, and Others), together with the establishment o our ocial languages

(Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English). Racial and cultural harmony is considered

undamental to Singapores existence, and so visibly emphasized in public culture.

Hence every Singapore citizen is inscribed with a race-culture (Chua 2009: 242), and

cultural diversity is to be celebrated especially in highly public estivals.

Unquestionably a prosperous global city, Singapore is extremely dependent on

labour migrants or its continuing economic maintenance and development. Most othis dependency is controlled by a restrictive work permit system or low skilled work-

ers in manuacturing, construction, and domestic services (while there are also large

numbers o high skilled oreign workers and students). In recent years, Singapores

non-resident workorce increased by 170% rom 248,000 in 1990 to 670,000 in 2006.

UN estimates suggest that international migrants comprise over 1.9 million (40.7%)

o Singapores total population o 4.8 million (UN-DESA 2008b). The majority o

them come, via bilateral agreements, rom countries such as India, Bangladesh, Sri

Lanka, the Philippines, Myanmar and Thailand. Old migration streams (especially


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rom China and Malaysia) conditioned by colonial politics continue to be important

alongside the recent arrivals rom elsewhere. A major government concern in Singa-

pore is to ensure that the oreign worker population remains temporary. State policy

has remained rmly committed to ensuring that unskilled and low-skilled oreign

workers are managed as a temporary and controlled phenomenon through a series o

measures, observes Brenda Yeoh (2006: 29), key among which are the work permit

system, the dependency ceiling (which regulates the proportion o oreign to local

workers), and the oreign worker levy. Diversity is conditioned by the ambiguous

categories o citizen-noncitizen and resident-non-resident which are charged with

identity politics, while use-and-discard state measures prevent immigrants rom

gaining any signicant oothold in Singaporean society (Yeoh and Yap 2008). Within

such a context, while oreigners physical presence in large numbers in public space

(on their weekly day o) may create moral panics and catalyse ear o the other,

the States response is not to deny immigrants right to public space but to subject

their presence to state-sponsored social measures (Yeoh 2006: 32). Accordingly, the

government has invested $7 million into the new National Integration Council which

will try to promote interactions between dierent groups as part o Singapores

transormation rom a micro-managed melting pot into a cosmopolitan city-state

(The Economist 14 November 2009, 68).

In Singapore, the GLOBALDIVERCITIES project will concentrate on the area oJurong West (pop. 264,000 in 2009). With an estimated 1000 actories as well as ship-

yards, it is a well-known neighbourhood o mixed immigrant concentration. Tens o

thousands o oreign (ar more male than emale) workers live in designated dormi-

tories. Important public spaces or research are Jurong Point Shopping Centre, Gek

Poh shopping centre and numerous surrounding hawker centres (unlicensed ood

stalls), Jurong West Park, and the new Scal Recreation Centre (purpose-built or

oreign workers). In Singapore the GLOBAL-DIVERCITIES team will work closely

with Pro. Brenda Yeoh, Pro. Lily Kong and colleagues at the National Universityo Singapore (NUS).

Johannesburg

Ater 1990 and the collapse o Apartheid, migration to South Arica (and to Johan-

nesburg in particular) rom the region, the continent and the rest o the world has

dramatically increased (UN-Habitat 2005). Actual demographics o immigration to

South Arica are exceedingly dicult to know, and they entail very heated political

debates within the country. Perhaps a reasoned estimate o oreigners rom all over
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Arica legal and illegal is between one to three million, although the numbers

may be rising due to the on-going Zimbabwean crisis (Wa Kabwe 2008). Additio-

nally, there are substantial fows o inormal cross-border traders, circular migration,

and rural-urban movement rom ethnically and linguistically dierent parts o South

Arica itsel. Foreigners in South Arica encompass temporary legal contract work-

ers, legal immigrants and migrants with marketable skills, variously orced migrants

and irregular or undocumented migrants.

Under Apartheid, migration to the cities was blocked; with that block removed,

urban migration has boomed (rom throughout South Arica as well as rom abroad).

The urban population o South Arica is anticipated to grow rom 50.4% in 2000

to 68.6% in 2025 (Marcuse 2003). Currently the South Arican urban context wit-

nesses the meeting o old and new diversities, where the countrys urban and peri-

urban centres are shaped by the legacies o apartheid planning, social ragmentation

and new patterns o migration (Landau & Haupt 2007: 4). In addition to being the

metropolis and economic powerhouse o the entire southern Arican region, Johan-

nesburg is in many ways the quintessential post-Apartheid city (i.e., once highly regu-

lated and now largely inormal in terms o migration). Here, rapid and proound

processes o urbanization have developed over the past two decades (Parnell and

Crankshaw 2009). The 2001 census indicates a population o 3.2 million within the

surrounding province o Gauteng that has a population 9.6 million. Following thevaried nature and complex orms o immigration to Johannesburg (Crush 2005:

121), estimates suggest that currently up to 40% o Johannesburgs population is o

migrant origin (Ibid.). Whats more, the migrant population o the city is relatively

small in absolute numbers, but is also extremely heterogeneous, in terms o both

national origin and lie skills (Crush 2008: 279). Origins o migrations to Johannes-

burg include Zimbabwe, DRC, Mozambique, Namibia, Lesotho, Somalia, Nigeria

and other parts o South Arica. Mixed and precarious legal statuses, urthermore,

situate many migrants socially, economically and geographically as well. These actshave important ramications or shaping public discourse, public spaces and the city

as a whole. It is critical to bear in mind that Johannesburg is a city characterized by

extremely high levels o intolerance and xenophobia, even leading to terrible riots in

2008.Consequently, Jonathan Crush (2005: 121) implores, as Johannesburg authori-

ties begin to articulate a policy on the presence o migrants, it is imperative that they

take account o migrant diversity.

Foreigners make up the majority in particular Johannesburg neighbourhoods.

The likely site or research in this project will be the district o Hillbrow (estimated
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population 97,000). Formerly a Whites only area, Hillbrow has become a central

site or migration rom townships, rom throughout rural South Arica and rom

all over Arica (Everatt et al. 2004). Important public spaces or GLOBALDIVER-

CITIES research will be Hillbrow Market, Joubert Park and the new eKhaya Park. In

Johannesburg the GLOBALDIVERCITIES team will work closely with Pro. Loren

Landau and colleagues at the University o Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Value o comparison

Comparative analysis o social and spatial dynamics in these cases will address that

part o the GLOBALDIVERCITIES research question asking what accounts or sim-

ilarities and dierences? A systematic comparison will show in sharp relie similari-

ties and dierences in the roles o the ollowing in shaping such on-going dynamics:

historical conditioning; the role o the state, including local policies; the specic

makeup o diversity in terms o ethnicity, language, religion and socio-economic

prole and patterns o inequality; processes o political-economic transormation;

the nature o new migration fows that mix dierentially with existing congura-

tions o socio-economic and cultural diversity; the nature o public spaces (particu-

larly in terms o access, regulation, policing, mixed use); the economic, material and

physical development o cities and local areas (including processes o gentrication,

abandonment, inormalization, and segregation); and the nature o locally produced

elds o power (including who has access to and say in the socio-spatial shaping o

public spaces in areas where old and new diversities meet).

Comparing New York and Johannesburg, Peter Marcuse (2003: 4) has signalled

that patterns o migration, both internal and external, are directly tied to these spa-

tial congurations. The parameters and conditions surrounding and shaping the

impacts o migration, and the emergence o new social and spatial patterns, have yet

to be ully accounted or. Through a controlled, strategic comparison o key cases,the GLOBALDIVERCITIES project will provide rich new data and critical analyses

contributing signicantly to our understanding o these processes.

The GLOBALDIVERCITIES project will thereore represent a major, inter-

nationally comparative project that will generate signicant ndings concerning

major trends and developments in global cities. We can expect with condence that

GLOBALDIVERCITIES will make a powerul impact on the elds o migration,

diversity and urban change, generating a range o exciting new theoretical and pol-

icy-relevant insights.
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GLOBALDIVERCITIES project material will also be compared with other case

studies o super-diversity in global cities currently underway at the Max Planck Insti-

tute: three projects on super-diversity in London (where 2001 data show 1.9 mil-

lion [27%] o 7 million people as oreign-born), especially ocusing on the Borough

o Hackney; and research in Frankurt (where 2000 data show 181,000 [27.8%] o

650,000 people as oreign-born), concentrating on the Bahnhosviertel. Further com-

parison will be made, too, with material to be generated over the next our years

by the Institutes Diversity and Contact (DIVCON) project, entailing a three-wave

longitudinal survey o multi-group interactions in 80 neighbourhoods across 15 Ger-

man cities, together with in-depth qualitative study in our o these. The GLOBAL-

DIVERCITIES project will also benet rom collaboration with the Comparative

Study o Urban Aspirations in Mega-Cities research programme at the Max Planck

Institute: led by Peter van der Veer and Arjun Appadurai (New York University),

and initially ocusing on Mumbai, projects in this programme will examine context,

design and the ideational character o many processes aecting the development o

mega-cities and the role o ethnic and religious aspirations within them.

Research methods

Several complementary research methods will be used to examine our research ques-tions component parts, compared across cities, social patterns that arise, and when

new diversity-meets-old diversity. Methods will centre on data acquisition, analysis

and attempts to understand better the multi-aceted nature o social encounters in

urban public spaces under conditions o diversication, with a view onto their tempo-

rality, spatiality and multiple meanings or inhabitants (Watson 2006a). They include

tested approaches or elucidating the micro-ecology o pedestrian streets [that] bears

directly on patterns o interaction (Sampson et al. 2002: 470), approaches which

themselves entail mixed methods (see especially Low et al. 2005). Below, the multipleand complementary project methods are grouped under three overlapping domains

o research and analysis: conceiving, observingand visualizingthe interaces o diver-

sity, space and social encounters in each o the three cities under study.

Conceiving

This domain o activity centres on exploring the ways old and new diversities are

imagined, read and represented locally, including how ethnicities, cultures or reli-

gions themselves are understood. Signicant here is the question o how such read-
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ings o new diversities are conditioned by the locally demotic or by ocially dom-

inant categories constructed around the old diversity (c. Baumann 1996). Here

too, researchers will ocus on the meanings o given public spaces, on the perceived

nature o the locality, and as Ash Amin (2002: 967) has advocated, on everyday

lived experiences and local negotiations o dierence, on micro-cultures o place

through which abstract rights and obligations, together with local structures and

resources, meaningully interact with distinctive individual and interpersonal experi-

ences. This is the domain o the residents views and interpretations, along with their

responses to the uncertainties, threats, delights, and strategies o socio-spatial navi-

gation through what are presumed to be the same spaces in areas o extraordinary,

and ever-changing, diversity.

Key techniques or sources or data acquisition within the conceiving domain

include:

archival research (especially minutes o urban planning committees, accounts o

public meetings, press reports relating to the development, crime or conficts in

the area);

statistical data surrounding socio-economic (especially aspects o inequality

including, educational and occupational), cultural (including ethnic, religious and

linguistic), geographic (physical and inrastructural) and demographic (including

age, gender and amily) characteristics o the area; various sampling techniques to collect qualitative data, particularly:

random questionnaires (in key public spaces such as markets);

in-depth interviews with key inormants;

impromptu group interviews (when people gather in public places such as school

gates while waiting or children);

ocus groups with a range o locals, particularly to gather their mental maps o the

area (such as what people live where, who moves when in what kind o space,

how particular streets or sites are characterized), their readings o diversity,meanings o locality and local identity, and nature o place attachments; and

expert interviews (with people having special knowledge and experience to

comment on an area, such as urban policy-makers, religious and community

leaders, vendors representatives, police, teachers, health and social workers).

Quantitative material will be subject to various modes o Stata analysis and data

visualization (see below), while qualitative material will be coded or content analysis

using Atlas Ti sotware.
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Observing

At the core o the GLOBALDIVERCITIES project is the method o extensive ethno-

graphic observation. Within the respective contexts o diversity, ethnography willocus on those spaces o interdependence and habitual engagement (Amin 2002:

969) where people with a variety o social and cultural characteristics meet one

another through feeting encounters and sustained or routinized interactions in

observable, public arenas. Contextual characteristics o those arenas, their physical

conditions, spatial congurations, material elements and uses throughout the day

and year are all observable as well.

Ethnographic examination should identiy regularities, tensions, disruptions and

negotiations in peoples encounters and interactions; moreover, drawing signicantly

on Lofand (1973, 1998), researchers attention will be drawn toward the production,

negotiation and reproduction o rules, norms and codes or appropriate behaviour

in public spaces. This includes social (including, possibly, class-based) and culturally

diering expectations surrounding what one should do in public spaces, and what

should remain in private spaces: such expectations tend to be dierentially gendered

and embodied practices as well (Watson 2006b). In these ways people may actu-

ally inhabit the same public spaces dierently. In accordance with these discrete or

shared/negotiated uses o space, the GLOBALDIVERCITIES project will also con-

sider to what degree, and how, some people might be arranging their lives to create a

community o similarity within a context o diversity (Sennett 1996), or how some

react with practical segregation underpinned by attitudes o mixiphobia (Bauman

2003).

Key techniques or sources or data acquisition within the observing domain

include:

participant observation in key spaces o mixing, especially p

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