Paper short abstract:

'Quotidian transversality' signals everyday intercultural modes and spaces which facilitate sociality across difference in super-diverse suburban zones. These include forms of quotidian gift exchange and reciprocity, kinship, gossip networks, actor networks, place orientation and 'crossing spaces'.

Paper long abstract:

Multiculturalism From Below: Transversal Crossings and Working Class Cosmopolitans

Everyday in suburban neighbourhoods, communities, clubs, schools, parks and shopping centres, people from different backgrounds mix it together, whether by design or necessity. Not all of these relationships are characterised by racism and cross-cultural friction. The majority are negotiated if, not always comfortably, at least in a mostly amiable fashion. In this spirit, I have been doing 'anthropology at home' in a culturally diverse suburb of a 'super-diverse city' exploring the kinds of cultural practices which facilitate 'intercultural crossing' among working class and mostly elderly residents in the area. My research set out to explore what kinds of contexts facilitate interaction, are there points of relation and similarity unrelated to ethnicity, what kinds of techniques do people use to negotiate those 'sticky moments' in certain intercultural exchanges? Who is mixing with whom, how, when, where and why.

I put forward the concept of 'quotidian transversality' which signals the everyday intercultural modes and spaces which facilitate sociality across difference in a super-diverse suburban zone. These include forms of quotidian gift exchange and reciprocity, kinship, ways of talking such as gossip networks, actor networks, place orientation and 'crossing spaces'. I consider how individuals in quotidian suburban contexts use these modes of sociality in producing or smoothing interrelations with those from different cultural backgrounds, wether or not this difference is a conscious one. I use the term 'transversal' to highlight the fact that these interactions do not necessarily mean discarding original sources of belonging, but neither do they render participants incapable of movement, or quotidian connection 'Others'.

Through the lens of 'quotidian transversality' I reflect on two modes of inhabitance; diasporic and local and consider their interrelation in this particular suburban space.