Introduction

This introductory chapter lays out the central matter with which this book is concerned: social diversification. It notes the many ways that, especially through migration, societies around the world are becoming more diverse not just socially, culturally, religiously and linguistically, but also in the ways that these categories combine with others like gender, age and legal status. Superdiversity is a concept referring to the ways that these varying categories combine to shape social configurations that supersede prior forms of diversity. It is a concept that has been adopted by scholars from across the social sciences in order to address a variety of forms of diversification and social complexity. Highly significant to this field is the relationship between social categorization and social organization, including forms of stratification and inequality. These themes run throughout the book's chapters, which are also summarized here.