Governing Diversity

This thesis is concerned with urban encounter initiatives implemented by NGOs and funded by the government. It investigates the rather novel subject of the relationship between governmental funding, encounter initiatives’ designs and the social contact occurring between diverse participants. From the perspective of diversity governance, it connects public administration literature with sociology literature and thereby detects contradictions between the logic of governmental funding and the logic of designing for positive social contact. It therefore studies the relationship between funding, design and social contact in the context of two urban encounter initiatives in Vienna, a city with an active NGO landscape and nearly 50% of inhabitants with a migration background. Drawing on interviews with the initiatives’ employees, interviews with the initiatives’ participants and questionnaires filled in by the participants, the thesis aims at providing a qualitative insight into how said relationship is experienced in practice. First, the findings indicate that the design of encounter initiatives plays a role in how social contact between diverse participants develops and provide suggestions on what aspects of design are perceived supportive. Second, they indicate that encounter initiatives can effectively contribute to positive social contact between diverse participants. However, they also indicate that the potential of designing for positive social contact can be hampered through governmental funding requirements risking a less favourable participant composition, the loss of human resources and the inaccessibility of funding for informal encounter projects. Therefore, this thesis concludes that governmental funders can considerably support these encounter initiatives through their financial resources, however, that the potential mismatches in this funding relationship should be reflected on to further increase the effectiveness of diversity governance and the potential of encounter initiatives. It concludes with recommendations of how the indicated mismatches may be eased.