Thoughts on ‘Superdiversity: Migration and Social Complexity’ by Steven Vertovec (2023). # 187. 28/01/2025

Out of Many, One People

Welcome, to an attempt to get to grips with what I see as a an important and fruitful understanding of the realities of multi-ethnic societies

Thoughts on ‘Superdiversity: Migration and Social Complexity’ by Steven Vertovec (2023).

Vertovec is the Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study Of Religious and Ethnic Diversity at Gottingen, Germany, having previously been Professor of Transnational Anthropology at Oxford. His 2007 work on this topic focussed on Britain but this book is European and global in its perspective.

What sort of picture do we carry round in our heads of ‘multi-ethnic Britain’? At its simplest that is just a two-sided division: white English and ethnic minorities, frequently bulked up as ‘BAME’, and then ‘UKME/GMH’. The latter category then gets subdivided into more specific categories: crudely black, Asian and white, then (as per the 2021Census and many other documents) further sub-divisions, so ‘Asian’ is separated into Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and ‘other’. Vertovec writes ‘multiculturalism continues to be conceived of mainly in terms of the African-Caribbean and South Asian communities of British citizens’. And yet ‘within any particular population from a given country, there will be important distinctions with reference to ethnicity, religious affiliation and practise, regional and local identities in places of origin, kinship, clan or tribal affiliation, political parties and movements, and other criteria of collective belonging’ (pp 21, 26, written in 2007). Accordingly, Vertovec sets out his task in the Introduction as ‘a conceptual reorientation to social difference’ (p 1). If that sounds dryly abstract then the following quote from Clifford Geertz helps tie it down: ‘strengthening the power of our imaginations to grasp what is in front of us’. (I sometimes find that what I am told about ‘race’ in our society or the church simply doesn’t fit with what I see in front of me).

So for Steven Vertovec the opening accounts I started with are more confusing than helpful. They still obscure highly significant internal differences within the listed groups. Far, far too many people now fall outside those main ‘census’ categories. Vertovec first presented his views in 2007 in a paper on ‘Superdiversity and its Implications’ (reprinted as chapter 2 in this book). Existing frameworks didn’t allow for what had become quite substantial national groups, such as Filipinos or Algerians; nor did it draw attention to how gender-skewed they were. The former group were very largely women, the latter very largely men. A second major problem with solely listing a limited number of ethnic groups was how large ‘other’ categories were becoming and thus hiding from view the existence of distinct and significant minorities. Examples (mine) are that Sri Lankans (and within that group Tamils) are not identified, whilst Somalis are a very distinct segment with the broad-brushed category of ‘Africans’. Further, of course, marriage or parenthood produces a potentially infinite number of combinations where the children may or may not be identifying with one of the recognised ethnic groups. ‘“Mixed” people now comprise 10% of the American population’ (p 109).

Understandably, then, when Vertovec here undertakes a deeper level account of ‘superdiversity’ the word ‘complexity’ is an essential descriptive term. In passing note that the hyphen has now disappeared from the middle of the word ‘superdiversity’. It is not describing a diversity that has become greatly expanded – say, by increasing the number of census categories from nine to xx – but an entirely new situation where the sort of diversity considered at the start of this article and still commonly held by most institutions, including the churches, has become obsolete. It confuses understanding, obscures realities, limits expectations, and leads to inadequate policies.

Central to the argument for superdiversity is the radical change in who immigrated from the 1980’s onwards, quoting a World Bank analysis: ‘Over the 1960-2000 period, the composition of world migration fundamentally changed’ from a rather restricted body of migrant origin countries to a global array characterised by ‘greatly diversified migrant stocks’ (p 92). At several points Vertovec describes the changes happening as ‘migrant driven and demographic’ (p 81). I take this as referring to the effects of both post-1980s migrant diversity, but also pre-1980s demographic changes in both the long-indigenous population and the now well-established post-war migrant waves noted above.

Spelling out what constitutes that diversity, Vertovec provides a comprehensive list: ‘Not only are there more smaller cohorts of people from a wider range of origin countries, but I point to shifting flows of people with wide-ranging nationalities, ethnicities, languages, religions, gender balances, age ratios, human capital, transnational practises and, especially, migration channels and legal statuses’ (p 6). Attending to each item on this list is important if we are ‘to see what is in front of us’, but Vertovec is especially alert to the impact of the complex and confusing variety of legal statuses which can powerfully affect migrants’ lives. (Important for churches with several Iranian members).

Accordingly, then, serious misunderstandings arise with what Professor Amartya Sen ‘calls a “singular affiliation”, a reduction of many facets and categories to one’ (p 184). A similar red flag is shown to ‘unidimensional categories’ (p 102), of merely isolating one characteristic as being determinative of who that person is, yet discussions of race, ethnicity and ‘diversity’ often get stuck on just one isolating characteristic. The result is that when enshrined in policies: ‘Simple categories support rigid social structures and hierarchies; complex categories challenge and might serve to breakdown such rigid social structures and hierarchies’ (p 204).

Some implications of superdiversity.

1. ‘Context is crucial’ (p102).

The very complexity of migrant populations means that the diversification of local populations takes very different forms. London is different from Birmingham and even more different from many northern towns. In London, Tower Hamlets, Tottenham and Totteridge are all very different multi-ethnic areas because of the very varying characteristics of both the long-standing and the immigrant populations. ‘Uneven and differential processes of diversification also underpin the shaping of discrepant urban diversities’ (p 112).

An interesting excursus is on the (inappropriately named?) ‘Halo effect’ where areas of high White concentration adjacent to ethnically diverse areas become more anti-diverse in reaction (p 139).

2. Non-overlapping identities should be cherished.

Central to Vertovec’s account is that we all have several identities. Often these ‘overlap’ (being Pakistani and loving cricket), but in other ways our identities might be quite disparate (being a Socialist and a company director). In these cases we become used to seeing life from quite different vantage points and so become more able to understand how others also can inhabit not just one but several different worlds. ‘A growing realisation of one's own self-categorizations leads to a growing awareness of others’ multiple group categorizations, and this is shown to enhance positive attitudes (p 187). This means people become more able to recognise commonalities with others rather than differences, with the challenging outcome of one UK study that ‘education strongly predicts levels of both in-group attachment and out-group hostility in the white majority’ (p 122).

3. Superdiverse societies are ‘dynamic and uncertain’ (p 191).

The fundamental reality of a high level of social complexity brings with it greater unpredictability and uncertainty in our society. ‘Emergent forms of organisation’ (p 190) reflect responses to a rapidly changing context. Superdiversity ‘forces us to see the new social environments in which we live as characterised by an extremely low degree of presupposability in terms of identities, patterns of social and cultural behaviour, social and cultural structure, norms and expectations. People can no longer be straightforwardly associated with particular (national, ethnic, sociocultural) groups and identities’ (p 58, italics mine). Superdiversity primes us to expect, and indeed celebrate the unexpected. It also highlights the weaknesses of top down policy. The ground level is too complex and unpredictable for that.

4. We can not identify a tipping point of ‘too much’ immigration.

Vertovec engages with the warning by David Goodhart in 2004 that ‘too much’ diversity weakened social ties and cohesion, but sees it as too strongly tied to a zero-sum view of society where more diversity equals less cohesion, but (as in 2 above) peoples’ capacity to develop growing understanding, empathy and community with very different people is not fixed but highly malleable. Vertovec notes the inconsistency that people often voice widespread positivity about the diversity of our society whilst still being anxious about growing numbers (p 12). Further, cohesion seems to be greater in areas of high ethnic diversity, rather in more monocultural areas. In this respect it would be interesting to contrast last summer’s large ‘anti-riot, pro-cohesion’ demonstration in ethnically mixed but fairly prosperous Walthamstow in protest against the violent racist riots in less prosperous northern towns,

However does the growth in very high earners now leaving the country to avoid paying higher taxes support Goodhart’s assertion that diversity erode people’s sense of loyalty in committing to the common good.

5. Class and race are still important factors.

The overall impact of Vertovec’s approach is to rightly complexify and enrich our understanding of what is involved in racial and ethnic differences. He has been charged with, and rebuts, the accusation that he therefore downplays the seriousness of racism. ‘Studies that describe the normalcy of urban superdiversity also underline the ongoing presence of racism and other hostilities’ (p 146). Similarly he notes: ‘Economic segregation remains one of the most powerful social dividing lines: people tend to have little to do with others of differing socio economic status’ (p 145). He goes on to note that in superdiverse neighbourhoods young, white well-off gentrifiers – despite their pro-diversity attitudes – often still have little contact with racially and economically different others.

6. There are ways to develop superdiverse thinking.

We have seen that people’s sense of wellbeing in superdiverse societies is not fixed but is greatly influenced by their capacity to recognise firstly the diversity and complexity of their own social identities, and then recognise the same in very different others. One way of developing a ‘superdiverse’ mentality is ‘ask the other question’, that is to raise a connected category – ‘We have an African CEO’ – ‘But what school did they go to?’

In his conclusion Vertovec lays a strong emphasis on ‘public information campaigns (PICs) as a method of provoking thought and change in people’s attitude to diversity, though how far such campaigns reach beyond those already like-minded would need scrutiny.

7. ‘Big picture’ issues: climate change and on-line communication.

At various points Vertovec refers to these two broad context issues, even if we may have little immediate control over their impacts. Climate change does already impact the volume and streams of migration from heavily affected areas, and that can only increase, possibly at seriously disruptive speed. On-line communication is less ominous but in rapidly and powerfully affecting the way we communicate is bound to affect how we understand and relate across very porous ethnic identities.

Some niggles.

* It would be helpful to apply social complexity and superdiversity to business. Vertovec draws on the natural sciences’ understanding of complexity theory to develop his own ideas and how they work out in society, public administration and politics. It would be interesting to see how the understanding of complexity and uncertainty may impact on how businesses work

* Vertovec wrote in 2023, before the Presidential election, and sees Trump’s appeal simply as malign white racism. But in the event his share of the white vote slipped by 1% and his victory was based on his appeal to non-white voters - +1% with blacks, +13% with Hispanic, and +7% with Asians. That is not racism, his stress on the increased cost of living in working class communities won him victory. More broadly Vertovec sees monocausal and inflexible views about race as only the property of the right. In fact ethnic-indentitarian politics are as common on the left as the right, whilst ethnic minority leadership has flourished more visibly in the Conservative Party.

* Whilst he recognises that not all diversities function in the same way and that racial/ethnic differences are very largely socially constructed, he seems to over-ride the fact that male/female differences are a physically irreducible reality.

Conclusion.

‘Superdiversity: Migration and Social Complexity’ is not an easy read. Not just because the print is small (though there is an Open Access version of it) but because it is a thoroughly researched and technical sociological analysis. On my reckoning around 20% of its 236 pages are lists of references to articles; around 120 for one chapter. Accordingly a review by a pastor with an historical and theological background most probably contains several mis-readings and over-simplifications. For that I apologise. But I do think Vertovec’s arguments need our attention. They give us a much richer, more appropriate and, I believe, more creative understanding ‘to grasp what is in front of us’ over against the simplistic, widely held but unhelpful understanding of race and ethnicity that is still common in Britain today.

Accordingly, next week’s blog is on ‘Reading ‘Superdiversity: Migration and Social Complexity’ in the Church of England’.

Related Blogs:

‘Does Using BAME help or hinder’ #1 28/10/2020

‘Newlyn Road N17& Super-Diversity #6 10/12/2020

‘The Changing Face of Race’ #74 10/05/2022

‘Is London exceptional’ #150 05/03/2024