Conviviality Vs Politics of Coexistence: Going Beyond the Global North
Conviviality Vs Politics of Coexistence: Going Beyond the Global North

Summary/Abstract: The notions of conviviality, everyday multiculturalism, ordinary cosmopolitanism focus on how people live together in contexts of cultural diversity. However, discussion has been to a large degree limited to the context of the postcolonial Global North metropolis. Taking it further afield helps reveal a number of conceptual flaws. To resolve them the debate should move from looking at techniques of living together to the politics of living together. This paper brings post-communist Eastern Europe into the debate through the case study of a street market in Sofia, Bulgaria. It is argued that the everyday encounter of different social strata in an urban space gives rise to similar tensions as the mixing of cultures and ethnicities. The notion of social multiculture is therefore introduced along the lines of Paul Gilroy’s “everyday multiculture”. Importantly, in the East European context deeply ingrained norms of civility do not protect from outspoken expressions of racism, nor is cultural or social mixing much celebrated. It is such social contexts that permit a study of how inter-ethnic and inter-class diversity are truly negotiated from below.

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