Migration and Conviviality: Living with Difference in Luxembourg

In recent years, the social sciences and humanities have been increasingly interested in diversity and everyday life. Rather than focusing on the negative aspects of diversity, such as the lack of social cohesion, interethnic conflict and segregation, they have gradually turned to studying concrete examples of intercultural communal life. This new perspective is reflected in expressions like ‘prosaic multiculture’ or ‘everyday cosmopolitanism’ and, most importantly, in the notion of ‘conviviality’. The article explores diversity and ways of living together in Luxembourg. Referring to examples from various research projects, it offers an exploratory journey into understanding how difference is being constructed, experienced and negotiated in everyday encounters. Luxembourg shows historical and sociocultural particularities that make it an interesting case for comparison. These particularities can be summarised in a series of seeming opposites. Luxembourg is very small but superdiverse. It is highly urbanised but shows persistent rural social structures. It has no colonial past but is nevertheless part of considerable global historical entanglements. It combines a high degree of traditionalism with equally remarkable cosmopolitan traits. The article concentrates on two dimensions that can be characterised as visible versus invisible moments of diversity: the importance of multilingualism and the impact of non-European immigration on national multiculture. By distinguishing the visible and the invisible and thus linking research on conviviality to explorations of the relation between perception and social recognition, we hope to contribute to the debate on conviviality and especially to the question of how it relates to power inequalities and conflict.