ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the contradictions between restructuring efforts that seek to capitalize on Berlin's image as a cosmopolitan city and the management of its 'really existing' ethno-cultural diversity. It presents empirical material that was gathered by the author in Berlin as part of a three-year European Union Fifth Framework project on cultural policy and immigrant inclusion in different European cities. The chapter focuses on selected material that demonstrates how cultural policy and interlinked institutional practices in Berlin mirror the management of urban 'diversity' in other policy domains. It describes the ideologies of cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism can figure prominently in contemporary urban policies that seek to both manage and capitalize on cultural 'diversity'. Multiculturalism seeks to ensure equal rights and recognition for 'minority cultures' that cohabit as a result of migration, whereas cosmopolitanism looks outward towards the world, acknowledging otherness as a universal condition and challenge.
