Urban Diversity and Spatial Justice: A Critical Overview

Abstract

Drawing on literature emphasising circulation modalities of urban diversity policies and its (dis)connection with issues of socio-spatial inequalities, this chapter seeks to demonstrate the complexity of urban diversity as a locus of negotiation and tension between diverse social and political players. In the cities of both the Global South and the Global North, whether under authoritarian regimes or liberal democracies, the undeniable fact of diversity is now an integral feature of political discourse and action. However, the political use – instrumentalisation, even – of urban diversity is often selective, partial, and sometimes discriminatory: experiences seen by inhabitants as being cosmopolitan and diverse are not always those recognised and valued by urban governance. The tension between a political vision of diversity and diversity as experienced from below, on a day-to-day basis, can contribute to processes aimed at making certain social groups visible or invisible at the urban level, i.e., those who deserve to be recognised and represented by the political authorities and those who remain excluded from the political representation of diversity.