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This is a co-publication with the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) Working Paper Series.

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The London Borough of Hackney is one of the most diverse places in the United Kingdom. It is characterized not only by a multiplicity of ethnic minorities, but also by differentiations in terms of migration histories, religions, and educational and economic backgrounds, both among long-term residents and newcomers. This paper attempts to describe how people negotiate social interactions in such a 'super-diverse' context. It develops the notion of 'commonplace diversity', referring to ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity being experienced as a normal part of social life by local residents. This commonplace diversity has resulted in people acting with 'civility towards diversity'. While in public space, people mostly treat everybody universally the same without acknowledging differences, in semipublic spaces such as associations and local institutions, here conceptualized as 'parochial space' (Hunter 1985), people's different backgrounds are acknowledged and sometimes talked about. The article discusses how people negotiate their differences in these two different kinds of spaces. It shows how civility towards diversity is used as a strategy to both engage with difference as well as avoid deeper contact. Civility thus facilitates the negotiation of both positive relations and possible tensions. The London Borough of Hackney is one of the most diverse places in the UK. It is characterized not only by a multiplicity of ethnic minorities, but also by differentiations regarding migration histories, religions, and educational and economic backgrounds, both among long-term residents and newcomers. This article describes how people negotiate cultural differences in such a 'super-diverse' context (Vertovec 2007b). It describes how, due to the long history of diversification in Hackney, residents experience ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity as normal part of everyday life. I conceptualise this normalcy of diversity as 'commonplace diversity'. Gilroy (2004:xi) has described this process with the term