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.

Maurice Crul is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His chair covers a broad range of topics on education and diversity.

Frans Lelie is an affiliate researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is also the project manager of the project Becoming a Minority, which focuses on the former majority group in Western European cities that is in effect becoming a numerical minority too. This is a new, but rapidly growing phenomenon. Under which circumstances are people more inclined to be that global citizen that we all are when seen from the moon? This question is what draws her to be part of the Global DeCentre.

Achilles Kallergis is an Assistant Professor at the New School for Social Research and the Director of the Cities and Migration Project at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility. His research focuses on urbanization, migration, and mobility in rapidly growing cities. In his research, he has collaborated with transnational community networks Slum/Shack Dwellers International and the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights. Previously he was a Research Scholar at the Marron Institute of Urban Management at New York University. He has taught at New York University at the New School.