Diversity and superdiversity in between policy and academia: a critical reading (original) (raw)

Focusing at its starting point on the emergence of the concept of (super)diversity in policy and academia, that has been cast by a growing body of literature as a “diversity turn,” this paper offers to challenge some of the theoretical and epistemic innovations claimed by this set of new analytical tools (Vertovec 2007). First, it critically engages the main features of innovation by replacing them in a broader context of an assumed “return of assimilation” (Brubaker 2001), a multicultural backlash spanning the decade 2000s, and a posited new global era of so-called “postracialism”. Second, it examines other sources of criticism, based for instance on empirical scrutiny and evidence from public policy analysis in three main policy domains: migration, urban studies, and anti-discrimination. Finally, while hypothesizing the advent of white diversity concepts, especially in the French and European settings, I question the possibility of mobilizing the diversity framework critically, namely through a deeper articulation with the perspective of non-discrimination.