As a malleable concept with a relatively positive resonance, ‘diversity’ proves to be a useful tool to legitimise a range of policy strategies, goals and outcomes. In the Netherlands, the concept has gained a central role in the implementation of social mixing policies targeting so-called problematic neighbourhoods by introducing a better ‘mixed’ or ‘balanced’ population. The discursive celebration of such a mixed neighbourhood, however, often carefully evades the question: ‘A mix of what?’ Closer inspection of policy interventions reveals that the different meanings of diversity are employed to claim urban space for some groups, while excluding others. This is illustrated by a range of micro-management strategies in a shopping street in Amsterdam, Javastraat. Framed as promoting diversity, they form a symbolically loaded strategy to covertly manage ethnic and class transition by targeting the retail landscape. This article explores the (discursive) remaking of the shopping street and the consequences thereof for shopkeepers and local residents.

Marketplaces are regarded as quintessential public spaces, providing not only access to fresh produce but also functioning as important social infrastructures. However, many marketplaces closed down or changed fundamentally in response to the COVID‐19 coronavirus outbreak. In this paper, we reflect on the effects of the crisis on Dutch marketplaces from two interdependent analytical levels. From a ground level, we illustrate their ‘temporary death’ as public spaces and reflect on their changing social dynamics. From an organisational level, we analyse traders’ responses to the institutional measures taken to combat the crisis. Combining pre‐corona, in‐situ research with (social) media analysis, we show how a variegated institutional landscape of market regulation emerged. Whereas some markets closed down, others remained open in a highly regulated manner; representing merely economic infrastructures. Our first reflections lead to new avenues to explore how the COVID‐19 crisis affects the everyday geographies of public space.

On a Monday afternoon in October 2020, I encountered Arjun 1 during my ethnographic study of the Plein'40-'45 outdoor retail market, located in the north-western outskirts of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Arjun, a middle-aged, Dutch-Indian market trader, had initially been selling Bollywood DVDs on the market but recently changed his trade to other products to keep his business afloat. The Plein'40-'45 market is a rectangular square lined with market stalls in the ethnically diverse and relatively low-income neighbourhood of Slotermeer Northeast, part of the city district referred to as Amsterdam New West. The market operates five days per week, from 9am until 5pm. With space for 153 markets stalls, the Plein'40-'45 market is one of the biggest markets in the city. After a conversation about Arjun's changing trade and struggle against declining turnover rates, he pointed with his finger to a leaflet behind his stall:

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With the advancement of comparative studies within the field of immigration and sociopolitical movements, scholars have attempted to understand how politico-institutional contexts influence the mobilization strategies of immigrant rights organizations at the local level. In this article, I make use of a field approach to explain how these organizations face different group-and issue-specific conditions regarding their involvement in local policy-making processes. Empirically, I examine the advocacy work of immigrant rights organizations in their aim to protect the rights of undocumented immigrants in Boston (USA) and Amsterdam (the Netherlands). By approaching power and resistance as relational phenomena, the results indicate that the intersection of distinct institutional and organizational mechanisms has differently impacted the local fields of immigrant politics. Taking different routes, in both cities immigrant rights organizations have found ways to constitute an affirmative institutional and discursive counterpower that challenges the national exclusionary citizenship regimes from the ground.