The UK has become a leading proponent of European restrictionalism and has focused its efforts on developing policy that excludes asylum seekers from mainstream society. Dispersal policy has focused upon sending asylum seekers to excluded urban areas where there is an excess of available housing. This paper discusses the potential impacts of this approach on the economic prosperity and social cohesion of UK dispersal areas and focuses specifically on new migrants who arrived under the NASS dispersal programme. It demonstrates that, whilst newly arrived asylum seekers and refugees (ASRs) have both skills and qualifications, they are currently experiencing high levels of unemployment and those who are employed are working in low-skilled jobs with earnings far below the average. The paper contends that the high levels of unemployment and underemployment currently experienced by ASRs may serve to exclude them from society in dispersal areas and in so doing exacerbate the general levels of social exclusion in those areas. It is argued that ASRs could offer new opportunities for deprived areas if initiatives were introduced to help them access work commensurate with their skills and qualifications.

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The arrival of superdiversity raises a wide range of methodological issues that warrant further consideration by social researchers conducting research in superdiverse contexts. The complex multi-layering of population settlement that has emerged due to successive waves of migration means that identities, lived experience and access to services including welfare are played out in a plethora of different ways, often determined by the interplay of a range of socio-economic variables alongside structural characteristics, which influence the fundamental rights and entitlements of individuals living in the UK and in turn their settlement and adaptation experiences. This paper reflects on the limitations of ethno-centric research designs, which concentrate on ethnicity as the single most important unit of analysis, and calls for more participatory and multidimensional methodologies that engage diverse participants and reflect the levels of socio-demographic complexity experienced in urban areas of society. It then moves on to discuss a number of specific methodological challenges associated with complex populations. In particular sampling and access issues associated with diverse migrant populations will be considered. The latter part of this paper discusses the adoption of a range of research approaches that offer promising potential in terms of better capturing and understanding the heterogeneity, complexity and fluidity concomitant with superdiversity as well as engaging a range of community stakeholders in the production of knowledge.

Britain has entered a new era of super-diversity and many regions of the UK are experiencing the arrival of new communities. Refugee Community Organisations (RCOs) have developed following the arrival of new asylum seeking and refugee communities, and have been charged with the role of supporting the integration of these newcomers. However, there is much evidence to suggest that they are functioning only with individuals rather than working with institutions to transform systems and ensure welfare provision is adapted to account for diverse needs. This paper looks at the role of RCOs in attempting transformation and, using data collected through survey, interviews, and participatory action research, examines the extent to which RCOs are able to engage with the public and wider voluntary sector, to ensure that refugees' welfare needs can be met. It finds that in addition to the much-researched functional barriers to transformation, there are major institutional barriers to engagement. Institutions have failed to adapt their systems to enable representation of new communities instead expecting RCOs to build their own capacity to communicate. The paper ends by offering some ideas around resourcing RCOs to be represented and developing the capacity of institutions to adapt to new diversity.