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The increasing ethnic and religious diversity of the population in European cities has generated politically and ideologically controversial discussions about interethnic coexistence and the future of social cohesion. The issue of the integration of a heterogeneous immigrant population has become a priority for urban decision-makers and politicians in the European Union. Concrete encounters between different migrant groups and non-migrants mostly take place in the workplace and at the local level of the neighbourhood. The actual form that intercultural contacts and conflicts in urban settings take and their consequences for individual attitudes are still widely unknown.
The GEITONIES (“neighbourhood” in Greek) project was concerned with how interethnic interactions, in neighbourhoods in European cities might help towards the creation of a more tolerant, cohesive and integrated society. Research was conducted in Bilbao, Lisbon, Rotterdam, Thessaloniki, Vienna and Warsaw. The main questions looked at how interethnic contacts are determined by spatial micro-level units and how these contacts affect tolerant or intolerant individual attitudes towards members of other ethnic groups. This project aimed to address these issues from a relational perspective through the lens of place, assuming that in contemporary multi-ethnic European cities, spaces of intercultural communication and engagement are vital to promote tolerance, cohesion, participation and inclusion in society.
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