Besides Conviviality: Paradoxes in being ‘at ease’ with diversity in a Copenhagen district

This article critically discusses conviviality, a concept increasingly used to denote unproblematic encounters with diversity. It is examined how conviviality has travelled in the literature, at times acquiring utopian and normative dimensions. Inconsistencies are demonstrated in the literature with regard to whether conviviality is elaborated as fundamental or ‘small’/local, overarching or counter-narrative, harmonious or (also) conflictual, unpredictable or designable, descriptive or normative and universal or particular. Conviviality is then applied analytically to interviews conducted in Copenhagen, using a resident-driven park as a case. The analysis demonstrates how a conviviality lens invites certain attentions whilst restricting others, such as re-production of majoritised norms, power and inequalities, proximity/distance and affective ambivalence. Finally, drawbacks and utility of conviviality as an analytical concept are evaluated.