(Super)diversity and the migration–social work nexus: a new lens on the field of access and inclusion?

Abstract

The notions of diversity and superdiversity are of promising relevance to social work with immigrant clients. They enable a nuanced appreciation of the complex and varied sources of inequality to which such clients are exposed. However, these categories are sometimes employed in overly principled or prescriptive tones, and their distinctive contribution is relatively under-debated. How can diversity and superdiversity be used to make sense of migrants' disadvantages as welfare clients, and what do they add to the pre-existing social work perspectives? This paper revisits three major issues from within the literature on social work with immigrants: (1) the shifting ways of framing these clients; (2) the relevance of diversity and superdiversity in the self-representations and organizational arrangements of service providers; (3) the methodological underpinnings, and ensuing dilemmas, of helping relationships with immigrant clients. Overall, social work emerges as an exemplary field to assess the conceptual transition from diversity towards superdiversity.

Not all the same after all? Superdiversity as a lens for the study of past migrations

“…Today, multiculturalist policies targeting immigrants and their descendants as members of 'ethnocultural minorities' are rightly criticized for their inadequacy in addressing new patterns of diversity. However, as they reflect the attempts of contemporary policymakers to come to terms with the complex realities that they were observing, these policies were necessarily reductionist and did not address all axes of difference within the populations that they targeted, nor did they target the entire immigrant population of the time (Boccagni 2014). The belief that guest worker and multiculturalist policies accurately reflect the historical reality within which they were developed adds to the image of post-war immigrant populations in Western Europe as largely undifferentiated groups of people.…”

Conceptualising Social Work through the Lens of Transnationalism: <i>Challenges and Ways Ahead</i>

“…In social work literature, it is argued that the perspective of super-diversity functions to de-essentialise the migrant category based on nationality and/or ethnicity among social work clients (see, e.g. Boccagni 2015;Geldof 2016;Phillimore 2015;Van Robaeys, van Ewijk & Dierckx 2018). However, from the perspective of methodological nationalism, it has been argued that the concept of super-diversity does not question the ethnic lens per se (Glick Schiller, Çağlar & Guldbrandsen 2006: 613); while acknowledging that diversity within diversity is urgently relevant, the concept does not lend itself to a critique of the divide between the migrant and non-migrant as an a priori assumption.…”

Mixed-sex in sport for development: a pragmatic and symbolic device. The case of touch rugby for forced migrants in Rome

“…To some extent, this reproduces the celebration of (super)diversity (Boccagni 2014) that characterizes the Mondiali Antirazzisti (Sterchele and Saint-Blancat 2015), the event promoted by Uisp in which Liberi Nantes were conceived. 16 The social-mixing potential of touch rugby therefore plays a strong ritual role (Durkheim 1912;Collins 2004) as it symbolizes the core values of Liberi Nantes, the sources of their moral commitment, and ultimately Liberi Nantes themselves.…”