Rapidly increasing migration flows are creating evermore diverse communities but government policy in the west is failing to keep pace, according to a leading academic.

Jenny Philimore Professor of Migration and Superdiversity and the Director of the Institute for Research into Superdiversity at the University of Birmingham says triggers such as civil wars, the need to seek asylum, increased communication and developed nations’ need for skilled labourers have acted as a catalyst since the 1990s for the continuing and expansion of migration trends around the world.

Superdiversity is changing the way that we look at migration

Talking in a podcast facilitated by Melbourne University, Prof Philimore said superdiversity was driven into existence and maintained by the force of new migration.

She loosely defined superdiveristy as people migrating ‘from everywhere to everywhere’, thus increasing the levels of diversity within communities.

“Examining superdiversity allows for the recognising of differences not only between cultures, but also within cultures, to no longer assume homogeneity,” Prof Philimmore said.

“Superdiversity forces governments to reconsider policies that are rendered outdated or ineffective by a new, diverse community landscape.”

Prof Philimore specifically focuses on the lack of policy changes in the United Kingdom in regards to housing and health care.

In Birmingham, Prof Philimore examined how various people understand the concept of home. It was found the majority of migrants or asylum seekers do not have a choice in where they live, and market factors drive choice.

“Migrants are not inevitably arriving into a homogeneous zone, but into a community with long established diversity. Individuals living in commonly diverse areas are found to be more accepting and comfortable with the increase in diversity, while others fear it,” she said.

Prof Philimore does however identify a general shift to the political right as a result of moral panic in the United Kingdom.

“This panic is often driven by national leadership, and results in a lack of resources on a local level, leading to a lack of reform. As even when local leaders or government bodies have certain ideologies, they do not have the resources to follow through with policy reform,” she said.

Prof Philimore said migrants often failed to recognise their rights or exercise options in regards to housing. This lack of understanding is a concept that further extends to healthcare policies.

She says migrants have various and diverse sets of practices, beliefs and values that may not be accounted for in their new environment and it is important to ensure the health care policies are flexible enough to take various diverse beliefs into consideration.

“Migrants use health services less than general populations in the United Kingdom, which may be a result of the rigid state systems that make it complicated for migrants to effectively use health care systems,” Prof Philimore said.

As an example, Prof Philimore references community midwives who may have up to 70 percent migrant patients. The increase of time due to interpreters for instance is not taken into consideration by the state, which leads to a lack of care.

A lot of work and keen interest was concentrated on policy reform up until 2010 specifically in the United Kingdom, according to Prof Philimore.

“Since then, the government interest and concentration on policies to account for superdiversity has decreased. The government is failing to give policy reform the attention it needs,” she said.

This has resulted in a backlash towards the concept of diversity itself. A negative view of migration is becoming more prominent, as is the desire to contain and protect certain communities from becoming too diverse, according to Porf Philimore.

The push for migrants to slip into the mainstream is becoming more and more prominent as a result of superdiversity.

However, Prof Philimore sees cities such as Melbourne as ‘encouraging’, due to their seeming interest in researching policies that could better account for the ever-growing diversity that new migration results in.

Sarah Gilmour
AMES Australia Staff Writer