Migration in migration-related diversity? The nexus between superdiversity and migration studies

This article argues that the notion of ‘superdiversity’ implies an investigation of diversity that goes well beyond the nature of migration origins and trajectories. To probe the academic value of superdiversity, I situate it within broader academic debates, suggesting that it is necessary to distinguish between superdiversity as a malleable social science concept – a set of variables that researchers conjunctively investigate – and superdiversity as a context in which these variables play out in complex social patterns. I argue that complexity is an integral aspect of superdiversity, before explaining how innovative research methods were used to investigate superdiversity in a dual-site project in London and Toronto in order to explore its relevance for global comparative research.     

New diversity,old anxieties in New Zealand: the complex identity politics and engagement of a settler society

Superdiversity signals the common experience in many countries and cities of the enhanced levels of diversity that are associated with contemporary immigration, yet there are a range of permutations and possibilities. One example of superdiversity – that of a particular group of settler societies represented by New Zealand – is explored, as the colonization of indigenous peoples has occurred alongside a nation-building project that centres on mass immigration, and which in turn has been layered by a more recent immigrant recruitment project that ostensibly values immigrants for the skills that they contribute to economic development. Since the 1970s, there have been limited but still important concessions made in terms of diversity recognition and group rights. This article explores the nature of this settler society superdiversity and its politics.     

Spatializing diversities,diversifying spaces: housing experiences and home space perceptions in a migrant hub of Istanbul

The neighbourhood of Kumkapi in Istanbul is a superdiverse space by all readings of the term. Having already been at the centre of varying migration flows for decades, its current residential population reveals substantial differences on innumerable fronts. In this article, I explore the role of space as both product and source in shaping the emergence and convergence of such multiple differences on the ground. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, I examine the historic socio-spatial transformation of Kumkapi, reflecting on the emergence of commonalities beyond ethnicity. I further suggest analysing these at a different spatial scale, moving from the neighbourhood down to the living spaces that migrants inhabit, exploring how variable differences materialize and become entangled in processes of where and how migrants access, use and relate to housing. In conclusion, I argue that superdiversity as an analytical concept carries the potential to understand new complexities in relations formed with and through space in the contemporary era.     

The needs of primary care mental health service users: a Q-sort study

Background Within scientific and policy literature, the broader needs and preferences of the service user are usually described as being relatively homogenous for any particular condition. Additionally, despite common adult mental health problems being a huge burden to primary care services, there has been little research into the client's perspective of their needs regarding such difficulties. The aim of this research was thus to uncover the issues and preferences for this sample.Method The attitudes of 28 service users were explored through use of a Q-methodology approach. This procedure involves statistical analysis of the order that participants rank pertinent statements associated with the area of study.Results Five independent factors (clusters of preferences) were identified. These differed over issues associated with: relationships with service providers, access/barriers associated with services, information provision, stigma, choices associated with therapy and the care pathway, medication and complementary approaches, as well as social support.Discussion The study suggests that differing individual needs exist within diagnostic categories which, unless considered, may impede service engagement. Issues associated with the implications for service delivery for these differing clusters of perceived needs and viewpoints are outlined.     

Factors affecting behavior and welfare of service dogs for children with autism spectrum disorder

The use of service dogs for children with autism spectrum disorder is a relatively new and growing assistance-dog application. The objectives of this article were to identify and describe the factors influencing an autism service dog's performance and the impact of this type of placement on the dog's welfare. A qualitative approach uses interview and observational data to characterize the dogs' behaviors and welfare with relevancy to the dogs' home environments. Identification of potential physical stressors included lack of rest or recovery time after working, unintentional maltreatment and prodding by children with autism, lack of predictability in daily routines, and insufficient opportunities for recreational activities. Results revealed that these dogs formed social relationships primarily with the parents and second with the children with autism. Failure to recognize and respond to the identified physical, emotional, and social needs can have serious impacts on the behavior, welfare, and performance of these autism service dogs, as well as parental satisfaction. As applications of service dogs expand to new domains, there is a need to assess and understand factors and variables affecting the relationship between family and service dog to ensure continued success of these programs.     

Not all the same after all? Superdiversity as a lens for the study of past migrations

Due to its claim of contemporary exceptionalism, the notion of superdiversity raises suspicion among historians. However, historians would do well to not dismiss the entire superdiversity debate as more hype that does not concern them. As a multidimensional perspective on diversity, encouraging researchers to examine the interplay of many different factors that condition people's lives and to move beyond an ethno-focal perspective, superdiversity could be of interest to historians as well. This article shows how the notion can help historians debunk some of the homogenizing categories that tend to characterize the representation of past immigrant populations. The paper uses a superdiversity lens to examine migration to the city of Ghent from 1960 to 1980. It is an open invitation to historians to accept the challenges that superdiversity poses and to provide a proper historicization of the concept, thus furthering its theoretical development.     

A new angle to the assimilation debate in the US

With “The Other Side of Assimilation” Jiménez provides an important and urgently needed new angle to the assimilation debate in the US. He investigates a key assumption of assimilation theory: assimilation as a two-way process in which both migrants and established groups will change through interacting with each other. In integration research, the urgency of looking at established groups in diverse cities is increasing, because in many cases they are becoming a numerical minority themselves. The different empirical building blocks Jiménez brings to the table should bear no other conclusion than that existing assimilation theories are becoming increasingly inadequate for explaining the dynamics in especially superdiverse majority minority neighbourhoods. We urgently need to look into what I would call a paralyzed white identity. Paralyzed because of losing – or the fear of losing – its dominant position, and the apparent inability to react to the changing circumstances.     

Friends with benefits: Social support and its relevance for farm animal welfare

Despite growing interest in promoting positive welfare, rather than just alleviating poor welfare, potential measures of good welfare, and means to provide it, have remained elusive. In humans social support improves stress-coping abilities, health, and promotes positive psychological welfare. Therefore, social support may be a key approach to promote positive physical and psychological welfare in farm animals. However, the roles of positive social behaviors and social support have been overlooked in comparison to negative social behaviors such as agonistic interactions. The benefits of social partners on an animal's stress coping abilities and welfare are yet poorly understood.The purpose of this paper is to review the protective or buffering effects of social support against stressful challenges and its potential implications for farm animal welfare. The biology of social support is first presented with its behavior, endocrine, autonomic and immune components. The major factors modulating the social support process are then synthesized. Research and implications for animal welfare in different farm species are discussed. Lastly, this review identifies research areas that especially deserve further attention in our effort to understand and implement social support in farm animal welfare.Social support could constitute one of the foundations for welfare researchers to leap from the absence of negative welfare to the provision of positive welfare and emotional experiences.     

Welfare micropublics and inequality: urban super-diversity in a time of austerity

This article argues for the importance of the role of the national and local state, and of increasing socio-economic inequality for understanding urban super-diversity in a time of austerity. Using a methodology and conceptualization that avoids the methodological ethnicism and “methodological neighbourhoodism” inherent in some diversity research, we draw on quantitative analysis and ethnographically produced material from south London to ask what differences make a difference. Examining interactions in “welfare micropublics”, including maternity services, schools, and elderly social care, we show that residents and service providers, often following an “ethos of inclusion”, routinely engage with difference in encounters, allowing the potential for conviviality to emerge. We argue that only by considering diversity together with inequality, can we develop more textured and nuanced accounts of super-diverse urban areas, including a fuller understanding of the social production of difference and indifference.     

Mexico through a superdiversity lens: already-existing diversity meets new immigration

New migration flows to Mexico are challenging long-established sociocultural configurations. So far, most studies on immigrants in Mexico have focused on singular ethno-national groups rather than paying attention to the intermingling of people. This paper presents an examination of diversification processes occurring in Guadalajara, Mexico. We contend that these are particularly strained because of the continuing frictions with which the country has to deal due to its already-existing diversity. The many forms of discrimination and racism that many Mexicans are subjected to by their co-nationals are often extended to new arrivals. The increasing complexity of migrant inflows challenges established forms of prejudice in everyday interactions. We argue in this paper that the use of superdiversity as a lens to study diversification processes allows us to better understand the changing dynamics currently taking place in Mexico.     

Some Consideration on the Cultural Competence of Service Providers About Migrants in Apulia

The social experience of being a refugee and having to develop practical coping strategies are closely related to processes of identification in the multi-ethnic contexts and situations under study, where ethnic identity becomes a central issue. To know the best practices and need analysis of immigrant integration in Apulia (Italy), data were collected by self-administered questionnaires to different service providers who had significant experience with adolescent immigrants in the target period. The survey of service providers’ experiences of immigration was conducted through the administration of questionnaire to a convenience sample of service providers, with interviews carried out in the period between April and June 2006. Altogether, 114 questionnaires were found to be useful for the purposes of the survey. They were subdivided according to the type of operator: 21.9% were secondary school heads; and the same percentage were social workers and psychologists/psychiatrists; substantial proportions of the total were formed by doctors with 24.6% and finally cultural mediators, 9.6%. The results of the empirical survey reveal a widespread perception on the part of the operators in the sector of the importance of an adequate and specific cultural preparation in the problems of adolescents. In this sense, the service providers favour a preparation that also involves training exchanges with the countries with the greatest migratory flow towards this country and the creation of adequate structures that can guarantee a better reception and the raising of the quality of life of all those who choose to come here for a new start in life.     

Special Section Introduction: Socioecological Disequilibrium in the Circumpolar North

Despite the evident challenges posed by arctic environments past and present, and despite the widespread acknowledgement that human population histories in the Arctic have historically been quite dynamic, it is often assumed that traditional pre-colonial populations were in perfect equilibrium with their environment, that they were perfectly adapted to their local environmental conditions. This adaptationist assumption is strongly challenged by recent research in ecology that has shown that many high-latitude ecological communities are in fact far from equilibrium with environmental conditions. Here we briefly introduce the notion of disequilibrium and the papers making up this special section. Ranging from the European Palearctic to the predicaments faced by contemporary populations in the circumpolar North, this collection presents a solid comparative evidence base for this new perspective. Together, these papers underline that adaptation – defined classically as the outcome of selection matching a particular feature or behaviour to the social or natural environment – cannot be assumed but needs to be empirically demonstrated. The papers also offer numerous qualitative and quantitative avenues for how to conduct such empirical investigations.     

Perinatal mortality in Utrecht, The Netherlands, 1880–1940

The secular trend of perinatal mortality in Utrecht between 1880 and 1940 and its causes are examined in this study, based on patient records of two maternity clinics, those of the city's academic hospital, and of its outpatient clinic. The sample includes 17,111 deliveries. Over the period the proportion of births in the city occurring in the two institutions rose from 3 to 90%. The perinatal mortality rate in the hospital declined and then rose slightly at the end of the 19th century, but remained constant, even if cyclical, thereafter in both the hospital and the outpatient clinic. Rates differed substantially between the two maternity services. Logistic regression analysis reveals a cluster of factors related to perinatal death. Low birth weight had a powerful association with perinatal mortality in both samples. Most of the other factors associated with perinatal mortality were related to the health of the patients, to obstetric problems related to deliveries, and to infant sex and maternal age. Relationships between perinatal mortality and other measures of human welfare in The Netherlands are explored.     

我国医院后勤服务协同的现实障碍分析

医院后勤服务的运营不仅涉及与医院医疗服务之间的协调匹配问题,而且也涉及各服务提供商之间的合作问题。尽管医院后勤服务运营中存在着很多协同的机会,但在现实中却存在很多阻碍。从市场、制度、人力资源方面探讨了阻碍协同达成和协同效益发挥的原因,对医院后勤服务水平的提升及行业的发展,推进我国医院后勤社会化进程都具有十分重要的意义。

     

Race statistics: how to get from where we are to where we should be: a rejoinder

America's race statistics are inadequate to the policy challenges of the twenty-first century, especially for social justice and immigrant incorporation policy. But inertial forces – technical and political – complicate change. Overcome technical barriers by taking advantage of an experiment fielded in 2010. To miss that opportunity would be a huge failure. Political barriers are more difficult. Start with what is familiar – more emphasis on national origin – and add flexibility and granularity, both are politically desirable. Introduce change without disrupting the existing policy practices. Phase in improvements gradually, taking advantage of generational turnover. One generation changes the statistical basis for policy. The next generation, which has grown up with the new statistics, implements the policy changes. An example of how this works is found in the multiple-race option introduced in the 2000 census but probably not put to policy use until after the 2030 census.     

Current status and future directions of applied behavioral research for animal welfare and conservation

The papers that follow in this special issue reflect the state of knowledge and theory in the fields of animal welfare and conservation behavior. A particular focus is placed on how enrichment can be used judiciously to improve welfare and to prepare captive animals for release back to the wild. However, my purpose here is not simply to reiterate what the contributors of this special issue have said, but to provide an overview of the major themes, problems, and opportunities in applied animal behavior related to conservation and welfare. I review major issues in three interrelated areas: captive welfare, captive breeding, and conservation behavior research for wild populations. Despite many advancements in welfare science, one of the most significant impediments to a predictive science of welfare is the need to further refine theories advanced to explain environment–welfare relationships. I provide a brief overview of ten theories that have been proposed to explain good or poor welfare and suggest that they need to be made more conceptually distinct so that clear hypotheses can be articulated, and predictions made and tested. Captive breeding programs for ex situ conservation have borrowed and applied many of the concepts involved in welfare science to great advantage. Other keys to successful breeding programs include applying knowledge of social organization and processes to enhance reproduction; for example, finding the right combination of individuals to get animals breeding. However, behaviorists are only recently learning how to manipulate behavioral mechanisms, such as signaling behavior and mate choice, to optimize captive breeding for conservation. The emerging field of conservation behavior has played a role in captive breeding, but also is poised to play a major role in in situ conservation. Applied behavioral research can illuminate a number of issues important to conservation, including behavioral responses to habitat fragmentation and human disturbance (e.g., pollutants, noise, and light), and human–animal conflict (e.g., crop-raiding). Behavioral decisions made when animals are dispersing and selecting habitat for settlement determine the distribution of animals on the landscape and are important to understand for improving reserve and habitat corridor design. Captive–release and translocation programs require detailed behavioral knowledge to predict responses to novel environments and ensure that animals are adequately prepared for environmental change. This review underscores that many of the behavioral processes of interest to welfare science are also important for conservation behavior: perception, stress, assessment and decision-making rules, and other behavioral and physiological mechanisms. If properly understood, these mechanisms can be manipulated in the service of conservation goals, moving the field of conservation behavior from implication to application. A better integration of the disciplines of animal welfare and conservation behavior – together tackling problems at multiple levels of analysis – will further these goals.     

A regional approach to promoting improved care of multiples.

Live births of multiples in the U.S. rose 35% from 87,700 in 1988 to 118,295 in 1998. This increase presents public health issues due to the elevated health and psychosocial risks that accompany multiple birth. However, health and social service providers and educators are poorly prepared to address the specific needs of the multiple birth population. The Twin Service Network Project therefore developed regional networks of multiple birth training and resources in California to address this problem. Results indicate that these can substantially improve the care available to multiples. The project's integrated package of training and parenting education materials is available to other regions to assist in such efforts.