The representation of upper-class minorities in France and the UK: a shift in French assimilationism and British multiculturalism?

The concept of superdiversity highlights the social differentiation of migrations, including in a socio-economic perspective (Vertovec, 2007). This paper addresses the societal and political response to this socio-economic differentiation by focusing on the representation of upper-class minorities - and in particular Muslim minorities- in France and the UK. How do upper-class minorities “deploy” their identity (Bernstein, 1997)? To what extent do they have access to political and economic stakeholders and do they participate in delivering services to (underprivileged) members of the minority? Drawing on a fieldwork conducted in Paris and London with minority professionals’ networks, I will show that the representation of upper-class minorities takes contrasting features in the two countries. In France, access to political and economic stakeholders and the endorsement of a role of exemplarity towards underprivileged minorities is limited to the most elitist networks that reproduce the norm of suppression of difference. In Britain, access to political and economic stakeholders is not conditioned by the suppression of difference and political opportunities are very much specific to a particular field (with the medical field and the provision of health services being more open, for instance, than the field of education). These results thus highlight specific national responses to superdiversity and call for a discussion of an eventual shift in French assimilationism and British multiculturalism in times of superdiversity. References Bernstein, Mary. “Celebration and Suppression: The Strategic Uses of Identity by the Lesbian and Gay Movement.” American Journal of Sociology 103:3 (1997): 531–65. Vertovec, Steven. « Super-diversity and Its Implications”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30:6 (2007): 1024-1054.