DeZIM Book_discussion

The New Minority – People Without a Migration Background in the Superdiverse City

After more than forty years of discussion, research and policies aimed at migrants, their children and their grandchildren, it is high time for a book focusing on a group that has been overlooked in the integration debate: people without a migration background. In many major European cities, this group has become a numerical minority. How do they experience today’s superdiverse cities? How do they engage with diversity? These questions were answered in the international Becoming a Minority (BaM) research. An important outcome was that people without a migration background generally see living in an ethnically diverse city as enriching but very few have ethnically mixed friendship groups. Many members of this new minority group have not learnt to ‘do diversity’ from an early age. This book shows that people who have mastered the art of living together in diversity have more social contacts and enjoyable interactions, resulting in a greater sense of belonging in the superdiverse city. Participating in your diverse surrounding appears to be good for your own well-being. Download the book

Guests:

Maurice Crul holds the ECHO chair in Education and Diversity at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is the coordinator of the Becoming a Minority (BaM) research project and author of more than a hundred articles and several books.

Frans Lelie is the project manager of the BaM project and author of many publications on diversity and integration issues.

Niki Drakos is Co-Federal Chairwoman of the Urban party.

Prof. Dr. Naika Foroutan is Director of the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM). She is a professor of integration research and social policy at Humboldt University in Berlin, where she is head of department at the Berlin Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research (BIM).

Prof. Dr. Ali Konyali is visiting professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of the Arts in Berlin. He is also a research assistant in the Department of Democracy Promotion and Democratic Practice at DeZIM-Institute.