Living together in the super-diverse city: mapping vernacular geographies and urban relational space

In the past two decades, London has become a 'global city' due to substantial transformations in its 'economic base, spatial organisation and social structure' (Sassen, 2001:4). In the London Borough of Haringey, where my doctoral research took place, over 70% of young people are from ethnic minority backgrounds and over 100 languages are spoken. Super-diversity has been introduced as a concept by Steven Vertovec (2007) to recognise this exceptional diversity and the unpredictable, mobile and complex forms of migration to urban areas. Consequently, concerns of social identity, place-making, cohesion and belonging have become crucial in London and many other world cities. Difference has for many come to be viewed as a problem needing to be resolved and yet, in places where everyday multiculture is lived, it seems to be largely celebrated. As Paul Gilroy (2004:xi) has argued 'processes of cohabitation and interaction...have made multiculture an ordinary feature of social life in Britain's urban areas'.

Therefore, it is crucially important for us to ask and understand: what does difference really mean for our everyday lives and geographies in these super-diverse neighbourhoods? And how do these processes of cohabitation and interaction shape and produce urban places?
This research takes these questions as a starting point. It argues that space is crucially the arena in which our lives unfold, and an analysis of place enables an understanding of the politics of contemporary co-existence. Focused on the super-diverse neighbourhood of Finsbury Park, the research investigates how multicultural places shape people and vice versa, how Finsbury Park is made up of many everyday experiences and 'vernacular geographies', the local practices of place-making.

Through further research and publishing, this fellowship will make accessible to a range of audiences how this coexistence is lived in everyday places and the different implications of this. I will contribute to existing scholarship and debate by developing concepts of superdiversity, difference and conviviality, addressing key questions of the social relations implicated within urban change. Through the academic publications and conference presentations included in the fellowship, I am moving beyond stalled debates that either celebrate or reject notions of multiculturalism by adding a critical and nuanced view that opens up new avenues of inquiry. I combine innovative visual and mapping methodological approaches to demonstrate the relevance of geographical knowledge of space and place in understanding the complex ways we live together with difference.

This fellowship will adopt different strategies to put my findings into publications and make the results accessible. E.G. through a Knowledge Exchange programme with Manor House Development Trust (MHDT), a community-based resident led charity that provides holistic community development. This will involve a co-designed research activity to develop findings that explore how forms of 'community' and 'conviviality' are constituted through experiences of place and shared encounters in contexts of regeneration. I will focus on making the results relevant to local NGOs and government and can have a tangible impact on policies and community-based projects through a running a Stakeholder Workshop and writing a Stakeholder Report.

During the fellowship I will complete an overseas visit to University of Cape Town to develop new research proposals that will ensure this research can be built upon in new contexts. I would like to develop my research in South Africa, to investigate how the complexity of diversity manifests in the post-apartheid city. This visit will increase my research networks through contributing to the programming of the Urban Humanities Hub of the Africa Centre for Cities and will contribute to my own career trajectory ensuring the research can continue to have an impact into the future.