Visualizing Superdiversity in Canadian Cities

Join MISC at 4:00 pm on Thursday, November 7th, at the Faculty Club (3450 McTavish Street) for Professor Dan Hiebert’s lecture, Visualizing Superdiversity in Canadian Cities.

The concept of superdiversity was developed by Steven Vertovec, Max Planck Institute, to help us understand and come to terms with rapid cultural change (diversification), especially in urban centres that attract large numbers of migrants and immigrants from around the world. It highlights the point that new forms of diversity are being added to societies that are already characterized by older forms of diversity that also intersect with longstanding patterns and processes of inequality. Montreal, for instance, is an iconic example of these developments.

For the past five years, Dan Hiebert, Professor Emeritus, UBC and visiting Scholar of Excellence at CERC Migration, has been working with Steve Vertovec to build methods to enable people to ‘see’ these changes through interactive data visualizations. Their work has produced websites focused on cities across the Pacific Rim, in Canada, and another iconic case, that of New York City. They are currently in the process of revising and reimagining their approach as new data become available, and in conjunction with emerging forms of inequality. An improved and updated website dedicated to Canadian cities will be open for the public by the date of the presentation (it is in beta-testing now).

In his presentation, Dan will briefly outline their starting point – the concept of superdiversity – and demonstrate how it is visualized for Canadian cities and then will close with a discussion on how the visualization tools could be further developed in the future (e.g., by adding layers of information on vulnerability to Covid; increased heat-island effects related to global warming; etc.).

Daniel Hiebert is Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of British Columbia, specializes in research on immigration policy and the impact of immigration to Canada, especially on Canadian cities. He has also participated in a variety of advisory positions in the Canadian government, including the Deputy Minister’s Advisory Council at Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). From 2021 to early 2024, he served as Academic in Residence at IRCC. At the regional scale, he has worked closely with the provincial government of British Columbia on its efforts to develop migration and integration policy. He has also served as Co-Chair of the City of Vancouver Mayor’s Working Committee on Immigration, and has collaborated with each of the major nongovernmental organizations that provide services to immigrants in Vancouver.

The lecture will be followed by a Q&A and reception. This event is free and open to the public.

Host or Publisher McGill Institute for the Study of Canada