From Multiculturalism to Diversity
Much conceptual confusion has surrounded debates on the adequate response to difference in increasingly diversifying European societies in the past, which is reflected in the quote by Amsterdam’s alderwoman1 cited above. The word ‘multicultural’ can refer to a descriptive characterization of the demographic composition of society, to a normative political theory, a policy, and sometimes also to a way of being or acting. Invoking a shift away from the concept, critics of multiculturalism often left it unclear whether they were challenging the normative ideas, a specific policy or activity characterized as multicultural, or a description of the diversity that resulted from migration, among other factors. The introduction of diversity policies served as a response to public debates about the failure of multiculturalism, a discourse that was quite dominant in the European political and public sphere in the first decade of the new millennium. In my study, I am interested in how European cities appropriate this new concept of diversity and interpret and negotiate notions of diversity.
Diversity has become accepted as a fact by many political leaders in European cities, and the notion of diversity is now used as a label for policies addressing the heterogeneity of local populations. Amsterdam, Antwerp, Vienna, Ghent, and Copenhagen are just some of the cities that have renamed their former policies using the concept of diversity since the late 1990s and early 2000s. All these cities previously had policies in place which reflected some of the ideas of multiculturalism, targeting ‘ethno-cultural minorities’ and aiming at increased ‘socio-economic equality’. The shared starting point of diversity policies in all cities was accepting diversity as a fact, conceiving it as something positive and potentially profitable, and also seeing it as an individual approach. In contrast to multiculturalism, which focuses on ethno-cultural difference, diversity policies approach difference by taking several categories of difference into consideration, including ‘race’/ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and mental/physical ability. This combined approach to difference was reflected in the merger of a range of departments under the heading of diversity. Leeds has merged its former departments working on race/BME (Black and Minority Ethnic), disability, and gender under the header of diversity; Amsterdam has merged two departments which had been working on ethnic minorities and on women and LGBT; and Antwerp has merged a number of departments, including departments working on disability, newly arrived migrants, poverty, women, and ethno-cultural minorities.
‘Diversity’ is not the only term in use for replacing previous policies, and has a natural competitor in the term ‘interculturality’. Supranational European institutions did their share in promoting these terms, as they wanted to stimulate national and local governments to introduce new ways of accommodating difference.2 ‘Diversity’ and ‘interculturality’ thus can be seen as ‘competitor terms’ (Meer & Modood, 2011, p. 2) to multiculturalism and assimilation.3
Interculturalism takes diversity as the demographic fact on the basis of which it suggests an interactive process of living together, with a particular focus on social exchange and communication. It takes into account the necessary resolution of potential conflicts in order to foster mutual learning and accommodation (Meer & Modood, 2011; Rodriguez-Garcia, 2010, pp. 260–261). In comparison with multiculturalism, interculturalism is geared more towards interaction; it is less ‘groupist’ and targets a stronger sense of the whole society by also being more likely to criticize illiberal practices (Meer & Modood, 2011, p. 3). It differs from diversity policies by retaining a stronger emphasis on culture and by focusing on ethno-cultural minorities.
A number of scholars have also examined ‘diversity’ against the background of a backlash against multiculturalism (Ahmed, 2007; Essed & De Graaff, 2002; Faist, 2009b; Lentin & Titley, 2008; Vertovec, 2012; Zapata-Barrero & Van Ewijk, 2011). They defined its starting points as accepting diversity as a characteristic of societies, as an individual competence to address cultural pluralism, and as a set of programmes organizations adopt (Faist, p. 174). It emphasizes the positive effects of cultural plurality (Faist, p. 177) and is used as a business strategy (Squires, 2007, p. 159), e.g., to improve the quality of the labour force by opening jobs to all ethnic groups. While researchers do see a potential value in the concept, the central reservations concern whether diversity can be linked to a politics of equality (Berg & Sigona, 2013; Cooper, 2004; Essed & De Graaff, 2002; Faist, 2009a; Lentin & Titley, 2008), and its limits in terms of combining different categories of difference into an analysis of an individual’s position (Essed & De Graaff, 2002; Squires, 2009). If diversity is able to incorporate the idea of equality and introduce some new ideas, it could then go beyond multicultural politics (Essed & De Graaff, 2002) or become a new or extended form of multiculturalism (Faist).
As we can see from this literature, there is some scope to interpret diversity in different ways. This multivalence, as Vertovec has argued, may work for the success or to the detriment of the concept’s career (Vertovec, 2012, p. 150). The career of the diversity concept then depends not only on elaborating the concept further, but also on the specific policies and practices being used to implement its attendant ideas. As diversity is increasingly used ‘out there’, at least in the places where I have conducted my fieldwork, we can observe and analyze how the notion of diversity is becoming imbued with meaning in actual policies and state practices. The challenge, which this book addresses, is to link these observations back to theoretical discussions of diversity.
The ways in which differences are conceived has been a core theme of much theoretical debate in the social sciences. Over the past years, diversity has been introduced as an analytical concept, as exemplified in a number of edited volumes and special issues dealing with the concept (Berg & Sigona, 2013; Vertovec, 2009, 2015a, b, c; Vertovec & Meissner, 2015; Wessendorf, 2013). Diversity puts into question the ontology of ethnic categories (Berg & Sigona, 2013, p. 353) and changes the focus from entities to relations (Olwig, 2013). The concept of diversity, then, is meant to stimulate new accounts of interactions between individuals by way of multiple groups, categories, and characteristics (Vertovec, 2015b, p. 3). In Vertovec’s delineation of a ‘diversity corpus’, six main facets of diversity are identified (Vertovec, 2012, p. 297; 2015a, p. 2). These include redistribution, recognition, representation, provision, competition, and organization. In a slightly different list, Melissa Steyn (2015) brings together what she thinks should be the ten core analytical orientations for what she calls ‘critical diversity literacy’. They involve an understanding of power, a recognition of the unequal symbolic and material value of different social locations, the intersecting nature of systems of oppression, a definition of racism as a contemporary problem, an understanding of social identities as learned/acquired, a possession of a diversity grammar that facilitates talking about privilege and oppression, an ability to translate and interpret ...
