Issues of cultural diversity and governance have been on the agenda with regard to urban paradigms seeking to accommodate cultural diversity driven by a globalized world. Globalization replaced nation states with cities as the main nodes in the system of cultural and capital flow. These new urbanscapes feature particular conditions of interaction corresponding to what is termed ‘quotidian transversality’. The space where the contact zones unfold in everyday practice is not, however, as unplanned and spontaneous as is sometimes suggested. By looking into the production of two ‘diversity festivals’ we argue that this space is not just constructed in interaction but it is intersected by systemic forces outside its supposedly inherent practical rituals and negotiations. Such forces range from urban planning, hosting policies, and strategies of political actors to the market. These forces are all intertwined in what we call the production of interculturality. Comparing two ‘diversity festivals’ we seek to understand how interculturality fits urban planning strategies and is discursively produced with a view to create a certain image of the city and the cultural groups living in it. Methodologically the research utilized a mix of multi-situated ethnography and traditional qualitative sociological research. Comparison was carried out in neighbourhoods in downtown Lisbon and Granada.

--