Superdiversity in Highly Regulated Global Cities

Abstract This chapter examines the analytical productivity of superdiversity as a perspective in conversation with issues of nationalism, citizenship, and immigration from an empirical perspective that draws primarily from studies of (im)migration in highly globalized city-states with intensely regulated migration regimes. In relation to concepts of “intersectionality” and immigrant integration, it asks how superdiversity helps to interrogate key empirical and political questions of migration-led stratification and boundary-making. In doing so, the chapter suggests that superdiversity as a frame prompts scholars to be better primed to uncover complex intersections of difference that cannot be encompassed by traditional binaries of Black–White, citizen–foreigner, or majority–minority. This chapter shows how the superdiversity lens disrupts assumptions made by a Eurocentric migration paradigm that is less suited for understanding empirical social realities in contexts in contemporary Asia. However, the chapter follows others in highlighting that a superdiversity framework is less useful in speaking to issues of domination and entrenched structural racism.