Living together (and apart) on the move: new directions in everyday multiculturalism.

This paper advances research on everyday multiculturalism in three
key ways. Firstly, it puts into practice convivial disintegration, which
challenges expectations of integration in all sorts of ways,
highlighting how lives are lived on the move even though
immigration legislation and social cohesion agendas suggest
otherwise. Secondly, the paper widens everyday
multiculturalism’s “narrow geographies of encounter” to explore
not just where people are thrown together, but the wherewithal
of individuals – the worldly wisdom they embody and the
competencies they develop – as they move around. The paper
explores how wherewithal mediates experiences of fragmented
togetherness in a super diverse, “segregated” city. Thirdly, to
explore participants’ mobilities and wherewithal, we experiment
with go-along interviews in the immersive 3D environment of
Google Earth Virtual Reality. The paper demonstrates the
importance of mobile methods in researching how people live
together, offering insights relevant for policy agendas focused on
convivial disintegration and alternatives to integration.