ABSTRACT
Population aging and increasing diversification are two parallel processes that currently shape European cities, producing intersectional inequalities. However, diversity among older people is rarely a subject of debate, and even less so are the processes of exclusion and symbolic violence experienced by older people from minority groups. Drawing on qualitative research on (super)diversity and aging in Berlin (Germany), this contribution explores how public institutions respond to the growing diversity of the older generation in terms of social class, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or (dis)ability. While these categories, and many more, are closely intertwined at the individual level, the empirical findings show that institutions for older people struggle to account for diversity in later life. In fact, they simplify diversity, which is highly problematic as it (i) overlooks problems that arise at the intersection of categories, (ii) reinforces the invisibility of particular minority groups, and (iii) reproduces stereotypes. This paper jointly engages the three concepts of super-diversity, intersectionality, and throwntogetherness to unravel how institutional actions grant or deny physical and discursive space for aging in diversity—and thus create spaces of thrownapartness in aging, diverse cities.
