Searching for Belonging – An Analytical Framework

Antonsich, Marco

doi:10.1111/j.1749-8198.2009.00317.x

Cited by 776 publications

(815 citation statements)

References 123 publications

(202 reference statements)

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“…Through these arrangements, school staff may have increased the feeling of being “at home” in school, that is of being comfortable, secure and emotionally attached. Such a feeling is related to a sense of belongingness in general [14,15]. The students came from different parts of the county and had different cultural backgrounds, but a whole school ethos or culture seems to have been created.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Place belongingness refers to an individual’s feeling of being “at home” in the symbolic sense of being familiar, comfortable, secure and emotionally attached to a place, a culture, a group or even a situation [14,15]. The opposite of belonging is the “absence of the act or will to be with” [16, p.25], and the absence of a feeling of place-belongingness encompasses a sense of loneliness, isolation, alienation and dis-placement [14]. In order to belong, people should be able to express their identity and be recognised as an integral part of their community.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A photovoice study of school belongingness among high school students in Norway

Lieblein

Warne

Huot

et al. 2018

International Journal of Circumpolar Health

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Although high school graduation is important for living conditions and health throughout life, many students do not complete. In Norway’s northern most county, Finnmark, up to 45% of students do not complete high school. Contrary to prior research that has primarily focused on causes for dropout, this study’s aim was to deepen understanding of factors that support high school attendance. A strengths-based participatory approach using photovoice addressed attendance factors as perceived by seven participating students from one high school in Finnmark. Qualitative content analysis of data generated through group dialogue about participant-generated photos and individual interviews identified six factors important for students’ school attendance: a supportive school environment, a good learning environment, recuperation and recreation, family and friends, goals and ambitions, and place attachment. Related aspects of a supportive environment and belongingness, where school staff made important contributions to promoting a positive environment, were essential.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A photovoice study of school belongingness among high school students in Norway

Lieblein

Warne

Huot

et al. 2018

International Journal of Circumpolar Health

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“…When we examine different social science definitions of belonging, we find that the concept ranges from a personal feeling, the sense of belonging to a certain group, place, or social location, to the understanding of belonging as a resource that can be used to draw social demarcations and establish border regimes, the socalled politics of belonging (Antonsich, 2010;YuvalDavis, 2006YuvalDavis, , 2011. The politics of belonging is the "arena of contestation" (Yuval-Davis, 2011, p. 18) of people and groups with similar senses of belonging.…”

Section: The Concept Of Belonging and The Related Politics Of Belongingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Belonging has often been used interchangeably with the term identity (Antonsich, 2010;Pfaff-Czarnecka, 2011), and has been used as a synonym of, or in association with, citizenship, which is agreed to be an entitlement describing a contractual relationship between a person and the state (Antonsich, 2010, Yuval-Davis, 2011. Belonging has recently been conceptualized in studies of migration, in sociology, and in anthropology (Anthias, 2006(Anthias, , 2009Bogner & Rosenthal, 2009;Christensen, 2009;Pfaff-Czarnecka, 2011;Savage, Bagnall, & Longhurst, 2005;Social Issues Research Centre [SIRC], 2007;Yuval-Davis, 2006 in order to better understand political contestations and their ethnic (Büschges & Pfaff-Czarnecka, 2007;Ströbele-Gregor, 2010;Yashar, 2005; for Africa see Lentz, 2006) 1 and religious legitimizations (Castells, 2002(Castells, [1997; Haynes, 2009).…”

Section: The Concept Of Belongingmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Conceptual Shift in Studies of Belonging and the Politics of Belonging

Youkhana

2015

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The study of belonging, its underlying notions, and the politics of belonging shows that social, political, and territorial demarcations are still based on essentialist conceptions of the collective. These are often applied and reproduced in the social sciences as a result of methodological nationalism. Space-sensitive studies of migration and globalization and a return to the material have recently challenged social constructivist lines of argumentation and have provoked a conceptual shift from analytical categories with inherent spatiality, territoriality, and boundary marking to concepts based on movement and flow. In this paper the analysis of belonging and the related politics of belonging in migration studies incorporates space as an analytical category that cross-cuts established categorizations such as race, class, gender, and stage in the life cycle, and integrates a material semiotic perspective more systematically into the study of social relations at the intersection of the social categories mentioned. A new concept of belonging is defined which reflects the complex relations that individuals have with other people, circulating objects, artefacts, and changing social, political, and cultural landscapes, thus mirroring both the material conditions and the underlying power relations. Such an understanding of belonging proceeds from social naturalizations and fixations to the multiplicity and situatedness of individual attachments, which entangle social, imagined, and sensual-material relations that are constantly re-articulated and re-negotiated by actors in their day-to-day practices. In such a reading, belonging comes into being as a result of individual life stories, versatile contexts, and situated experiences and acts. In times of constant exchange through travel, mass media, and communication technologies, the conceptualization of belonging questions established sociocultural and political demarcations, indicates the compatibility of ascribed socio-cultural difference and stresses the permeability of borderlines. A space-sensitive theorization of social relations and belonging opens up new perspectives on the question of how social collectives are naturalized and by whom, and under which conditions they open up to new forms of belonging; it thus brings forth new findings about collectivization, social mobilization, and change.

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“…For example, work on transnationalism and translocalism shows the ways in which both places and identities are connected and changed through the experience of migration (Conradson and Mckay 2007;Levitt and Jaworsky 2007;Brickell and Datta 2011). Transnational and translocal approaches have been particularly important in foregrounding concepts such as "belonging" and "home" that allow the relationship between place and immigrant identity to be understood in more nuanced ways (see Ehrkamp 2005;Blunt and Dowling 2006;Mee and Wright 2009;Antonsich 2010;Ralph and Staeheli 2011;van Riemsdijk 2014;Wright 2014). The quote from Tomaz shows this very clearly, as he 1 Tomaz is a pseudonym.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%