Diversity and interculturalism, a critique and a defence. Going through multiethnic neighbourhoods in Rome

Extract: Marco Cremaschi Carlotta Fioretti The starting hypothesis of this chapter is that the two different concepts of the diverse city and the intercultural city can be applied interchangeably to describe and govern multi-ethnic urban settings, the difference being more a matter of scale than of nature. Diversity and interculturalism share, in fact, the same duplicity: a normative content combined with an analytic orientation. The former, however, addresses mainly the ordinary configuration of places while the latter allows the discussion of rights and political principles. Are the diverse city and the intercultural city the same, then? The answer is affirmative, but conditional upon clearing both concepts of ideological deposits. Interculturalism, in particular, describes the attitude of governments towards integration intended as a process of exchange and interaction between the host and the immigrant population. At the same time, it suggests a normative model for balancing and accepting these exchanges. Interculturalism has..