Neighbourhood-based research on the rise of super-diverse cities has mostly focused on the implications of living in super-diverse neighbourhoods for individual relations, and paid little attention to processes of group formation. This paper focuses on how residents of superdiverse neighbourhoods identify social groups. Drawing on the concept of symbolic boundary making, it provides insights into how residents draw, enact and experience boundaries. Using the results of in-depth interviews with residents in Antwerp and Rotterdam, we show that superdiversity complexifies but does not counteract group formation. Residents draw multiple, interrelated symbolic boundaries along ethnic, class and religious lines and lines based on length of residence, which are sometimes used interchangeably. We also show that group boundaries are dynamic and constantly (re-)created. Finally, we show that discursive boundaries do not necessarily lead to less social contact across these boundaries, thus illustrating that symbolic boundaries do not always result in segregated social patterns.

This research was facilitated within the framework of the EU-sponsored DIVERCITIES. This project has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No. 319970. SSH.2012.2.2.2-1; Governance of cohesion and diversity in urban contexts (see: http://www.urbandivercities.eu). The views expressed in this report are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.

As today's cities are becoming more diverse, scholars and policy makers have become increasingly interested in the impacts of living in diverse neighbourhoods on people's perceptions of diversity. While adults' and young people's perceptions have been studied separately, we know little about how different age groups living in the same neighbourhood encounter and experience diversity. In this paper we explore how adults (aged 35-65) and young people (aged 12-19) in Feijenoord, Rotterdam perceive neighbourhood diversity and how this is related to encounters with differences in public, semi-public and private neighbourhood spaces. We argue for combining generational and spatial approaches when studying perceptions of diversity by showing that these perceptions cannot be explained by age and the time people grew up in alone, but are also shaped by the different ways in which age groups use neighbourhood spaces and encounter others in these spaces.

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