Diversity on the Doorstep. Everyday Categorization of Neighbours
European city centres are characterized by their heterogeneous populations. In Geneva, people from diverse origins and social positions dwell in the same buildings. This offers the opportunity to analyze how this heterogeneity appears to urbanites’ eyes, when they speak about each other. Through interviews with dwellers of four residential buildings, I show that rather than classifying their neighbours into groups and referring to “us” and “them”, interviewees combine categories which vary depending on the person to be described. Moreover, some neighbours remain unknown even to long-time residents. I interpret these findings as a consequence of the heterogeneity of the studied population, but also of the lack of visibility of each other’s behaviour, as well as of the absence—at the residential building’s level—of stable and cohesive groups. Consequently, residential buildings can belong to the public realm. Parts of them remain unknown territory populated by strangers, with whom coexistence is facilitated by self-restraint and indifference.