Legal status diversity: regulating to control and everyday contingencies

Abstract

Tracing the link between population flux and the regulation of migration, this paper develops the argument that immigration status differentiations impact not only on categorical multiplicities but also on contingent dynamics in urban migration-related diversity. A better understanding of those contingencies is central to discussing processes of adaptation in contexts of superdiversity. I first point to the frequency of change in rules and regulations pertaining to a multiplicity of immigration statuses. I then emphasise the corelevance of conditionalities of entry and parameters of presence, set out by those rules, as central components of legal status diversity. In a third part I consider the resulting differentiations in terms of information overload. Thinking about status differentiations as information contradicts devising ever more status tracks to order migration and optimise its economic and social implications. I then point to empirical patterns in legal status diversities emphasising spatiotemporal contingencies in admitting migrants through different immigration channels. Concurrently I highlight why the resulting patterns of change are relevant for local urban diversity dynamics. I conclude the paper by drawing parallels between on the one hand steering migration to optimise its implications and on the other hand steering adaptations in superdiverse contexts to optimise integration.

Discrimination in migration and citizenship

“…The rapidly growing literature on superdiversity has captured new forms of diversity that are historically unprecedented in their scale, speed, and complexity (Vertovec 2007). As the frequency and complexity of policy change has increased over time (Meissner 2018), the regulation of immigration itself has come to serve as a driver of diversity through the diversification of status tracks (Beine et al 2013). As Anna Boucher shows in this issue, even tracks such as high-skilled immigration that are commonly referred to in unitary terms, upon further disaggregation reveal a startling variety of definitions of skill and attached conditionalities (2020).…”

Introduction: rethinking integration. New perspectives on adaptation and settlement in the era of super-diversity

“…The papers address some of the challenges outlined above and in so doing mark the beginning of a shift in thinking about how we might research and conceptualise integration in an era of super-diversity (Buhr 2017;Phillimore, Humphris, and Khan 2017;Strang, Baillot, and Mignard 2017). The papers offer alternative concepts and approaches of differentiated embedding (Ryan 2017) or anchoring (Grzymala-Kazlowska 2017) while critically considering issues of social relations and settlement in the context of socio-cultural and legal super-diversity (Meissner 2017), length of time and cultural skills and competencies (Wessendorf 2017) and transnationalism (Wagner 2017).…”

“…She highlights the importance of better understanding those contingencies in discussing processes of adaptation in contexts of super-diversity illustrating how those patterns are relevant for local urban diversity dynamics. Meissner (2017) concludes by identifying tensions in the goals of state steering and regulating of migration through differentiations in status with the objective of steering adaptations in superdiverse contexts to optimise integration. Buhr (2017) develops the idea of spatial integration bringing a geographical perspective into the understanding of migrant integration.…”

Of straw figures and multi-stakeholder monitoring – a response to Willem Schinkel

“…detrimental ways (Meissner, 2017). Previously (Meissner, 2016), I analysed the absurdity of using ethnic-homophily to measure immigrant integration in contexts of superdiversity.…”