ABSTRACT
Soon after its publication, the original superdiversity article very quickly prompted a range of interests. This was witnessed across academia (in migration studies, linguistics, education, business, health, media & arts, and more) and in policy circles (including health, social services and education as well as among non-government organizations (NGOs) and policy think tanks). This chapter reviews and assesses many of the ways the concept of super-diversity has been received, understood, criticized, and taken up across these fields. It includes typology of no less than eight ways the concept has been evoked in academic literature, where it has now been cited over 7,000 times. Some uses of the superdiversity concept do not reflect my original meanings or intentions. On the one hand, this has often led to skewed understandings; on the other hand, deflected meanings have stimulated exciting new avenues of research and theory. The superdiversity concept has also attracted certain criticisms, too, many of which are addressed here. In almost all cases, however, academics’ varied interests in superdiversity have indicated a widespread social scientific longing for new concepts, language, and approaches for understanding different kinds of contemporary, complex social transformations.
