ANNUAL CONGRESS 2025

POLICIES AND BRANDING OF URBAN DIVERSITY. REFLECTIONS BUILDING ON THE CASE OF TURIN, ITALY

Not scheduled

20m

Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul

Poster Track 07 | INCLUSION

Speaker

Silvia Crivello

Description

Over the last twenty years, both the academic and political debates have focused on the concept of "diversity" (Vertovec, 2007, 2010; Meissner and Vertovec, 2015) and, in particular, on the increasingly growing "diversification" of diversity (Vertovec, 2007 p. 1026) of contemporary societies and cities.
If a convergence on the importance of the concept of diversity is established, however, the debate on diversity in cities is today characterized by the presence of polarized narratives and positions.
In the main cities of the world, administrators and policy makers have, even more, to govern and manage urban areas inhabited by increasingly ‘diverse’ populations; if there are, in fact, antithetical positions on
considering urban diversity as a resource to be encouraged or a problem to resolve, it’s a certainty that the growth of socio-cultural and economic diversity, generates new challenges for city governance models (Vertovec, 2007; Tasan-Kok et al., 2013).
The study is built on the case of Turin, Italy. The city has a high share of foreign residents (compared to the national average) and in recent times has invested on urban promotion to free itself from its industrial heritage.
The contribution investigates how urban diversity related to the foreign presence is translated into local policies. The analysis detects two perspectives: on the one hand, the relationship with diversity is translated into interventions to manage the foreign population already present; on the other hand, into actions to strengthen and attract an international component. The aim is also to reflect on their intersections and on the emerging vision of diversity.

References

Meissner F., Vertovec S. (2015). Comparing Super-Diversity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38(4): 541-555
Taşan-Kok T., van Kempen R., Raco M. e Bolt G. (2013). Towards Hyper-Diversified European Cities. A Critical Literature Review, Utrecht: Utrecht University.
Vertovec S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(6): 1024-1054.
Vertovec S. (2010). Towards post-multiculturalism? Changing communities, conditions and contexts of diversity. International Social Science Journal, 61(199): 83-95.