Navigating Brussels’ “bubble(s)”. Privileged migrants’ perceptions of (super)-diversity in the EU capital and its implications on migrant othering and solidarity

While the mediatization and the politization of the management of the European Union's physical borders has been exacerbated by the refugee reception crisis of 2015-2016, the expansion of 'symbolic' boundaries – which materialize through exclusionary attitudes towards migrants – deserves further attention, considering their crucial implications on social cohesion. This communication is based on a PhD thesis which more largely investigates the perceptions of (privileged) migrants from Italy, Greece, and Turkey living in Brussels vis-à-vis migrants and immigration in both their host and home countries. Drawing from 51 semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted between November 2020 and March 2022, I more specifically analyze in this paper the extent to which respondents’ experiences and perceptions of (super-) diversity lead to intergroup contact and further affect their ingroup/outgroup othering and solidarity discourses and practices.