Highlights from the CaDDANZ Pathways, Diversity and Inclusion Conference [Feb 2018]

March 1, 2018

This year, the Capturing the Diversity Dividend of Aotearoa/New Zealand (CaDDANZ) Pathways, Diversity and Inclusion Conference held February 8-9 at the Albany Campus Massey University, hosted eminent international speaker Prof Steven Vertovec. Steven Vertovec is a Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, University of Göttingen, Germany, one of the foremost centers for the multi-disciplinary study of diversity, in its multiple forms, in today’s globalizing world. Vertovec’s (2007, p. 1024) seminal article ‘Super-diversity and its implications’ describes “a notion intended to underline a level and kind of complexity surpassing anything a country” has previously experienced. Such a condition is distinguished by a dynamic interplay of variables among an increased number of new, small and scattered, multiple-origin, transnationally connected, socio-economically differentiated and legally stratified immigrants who have arrived over the last decade”. New Zealand is one of the most super diverse nations in the world. 

The Pathways conference run annually for research and policy communities, provides research findings, and current and emerging policy issues and outcomes for migrants and host communities. The conference was a good opportunity for health planners and service providers to understand what is happening in our various communities and how communities and workforces understand and interact in situations of diversity. 

New Zealand speaker, Dr Francis Collins, University of Auckland, addressed the relationship between new forms of temporary migration and experiences of diversity and in particular the ways in which our understandings of ‘super diversity’ need to pay much greater attention to the state-led stratification of migrant populations (ie skilled and unskilled categories, temporary work visas etc). In other words, diversity is not only about ethnicity but also about the socio-legal status of populations and the implications that this has for access to rights and entitlements and making an inclusive society.

Dr Natalie Jackson (Massey University) and Dr Lars Brabyn (University of Waikato) have created a soon to be launched online Social Atlas of New Zealand to provide decision support for central and local government, DHBs, education boards and others. Understanding and predicting spatial patterns in population change has significant implications for infrastructure, and national population planning in healthcare. The tool has been developed to inform policy responses to population planning in New Zealand, based on an empirically based understanding of what drives net migration.

Associate Professor Michael Cameron, Department of Economics, University of Waikato has addressed the challenge of projecting sub-national ethnic population projections for 32 small ethnic groups in New Zealand.  For more information go to: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Cameron_2. The development of these new online population mapping and population projection tools is of specific interest to understanding sub national ethnic population trends and patterns.

 

References

Author: Vertovec, S.

Citation: Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30 (6), 1024-1054.

Link: http://www.kohnstamminstituut.uva.nl/woa/assets/vertovec_2007.pdf 

Author: Brabyn, L.

Citation: Brabyn, L. (2017). Declining towns and rapidly growing cities in New Zealand: developing an empirically-based model that can inform policy. Policy Quarterly, 13(Supplementary), 37-46.

Link: https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/11409