From Commonplace Diversity to Relational Hybridization: Everyday Interculturalism in Rome's Banglatown

This article explores the social transformation of Rome's Banglatown, located in the Torpignattara neighbourhood, as a case of everyday interculturalism. Through ethnographic fieldwork with the Bangladeshi diaspora, it examines how diversity is lived, negotiated and reconfigured in the spaces of daily interaction. Building on the concept of ‘commonplace diversity’, the study highlights how routine public encounters—especially in schools, parks and local commerce—foster recognition and coexistence, while often stopping short of deeper intercultural intimacy. The analysis reveals a gendered dynamic in which Bangladeshi women, particularly mothers, act as informal socio-cultural brokers in the public sphere, while men remain largely confined to ethnic networks. Crucially, by introducing the notion of relational hybridization, the article demonstrates that second-generation children are more likely to shift intercultural relations into the private and affective sphere, cultivating friendships and emotional proximity across ethnic lines. These practices do not merely intensify existing ties but alter the social meaning of difference by relocating interculturality into domains of intimacy. These children generate hybrid forms of belonging that challenge both community conservatism and societal exclusion. The article argues that Banglatown is not simply a site of demographic concentration, but a relational space where diversity is enacted and reshaped from below. It contributes to contemporary debates on urban interculturalism by foregrounding affective infrastructures, generational shifts and the everyday labour of living with difference.