Religion, Ethnicity and National Origins: Exploring the Independence of Variables in a Superdiverse Neighbourhood

Abstract

Many studies of diverse urban neighbourhoods have identified that the people who live in these neighbourhoods tend to live separate lives based on shared characteristics such as ethnicity, national origin or religion. In his study of Rogers Park in Chicago, Lowell Livezey refers to these as „ethnoracial enclaves‟. Steven Vertovec‟s concept of superdiversity, however, appears to question this assuming a certain level of independence between different kinds of diversity (ethnicity, language, national origin, religion, legal status, etc.). In my study of Handsworth in Birmingham, UK, I argued that this independence of the variables of diversity allowed people to choose the identity that most suited their needs at the time and that, in the conversations I listened to, they chose identities that brought people together rather than those that set them apart. This paper explores the idea of the independence of the various variables of diversity as assumed in the use of the term „superdiversity‟ and uses census data from the 2011 census of England and Wales to test this assumption in relation to the city of Birmingham and the specific neighbourhood of Handsworth.