Abstract:In most modern sociological literature, it is a rarity to find analyses suggesting that social bonds and the sense of belonging can be strong in socially deprived areas. In the classic Chicago tradition of sociology, in the works of Park et al. and in Louis Wirth’s The Ghetto, residential areas are described both as places in which the social bonds are loose and places with strong bonds. However, a focal point in this article is that the sense of place and belonging are related to the type and the quality of l… Show more
“…Geographical mobility was associated by all participants with social mobility; that is, it was treated as a pathway to increase quality of life and improve socioeconomic conditions as well as to diminish stigmatized features of place identity. However, those who actually experienced residential mobility tended to maintain deep emotional affinities to their stigmatized neighborhoods, something consistent with similar results in international research (Jorgensen, 2010; Kirkness, 2014; Manzo et al, 2008; Ortega, 2014). These results are aligned with some studies focused on the subjective implications of social mobility, as people may feel as an outsider in the new place, and indebted with the place of origin, feeling that they have to give back to the childhood neighborhood (e.g., Castillo, 2016; De Gaulejac, 2008; Salinas & Riquelme, 2015; Walkerdine, 2003):Maybe I will work for the wealthy, to win more money, but I will also work in deprived neighbourhoods.…”
Section: Social Exclusion Place and Stigmasupporting
As mobility is increasingly reshaping social relations, understanding how it affects new forms of social exclusion is an important challenge in today's polarized societies. From a political‐psychological perspective, this challenge requires recognition of how identity processes linked to exclusion are significantly shaped by sociospatial mobility practices. Identity, mobility, and exclusion are at the core of the psychological experience of people living in segregated areas from where they are impelled to leave. Building on this argument, we present a qualitative case study based on ethnographic and narrative methods, which aimed to understand identity processes among young people who have lived most of their lives in four “stigmatized neighborhoods” in Santiago de Chile. The analysis indicated that young people navigate a paradoxical identity project in such neighborhoods, driven by contradictory cultural mandates. This case study contributes to knowledge on how sociospatial exclusion and the politics of mobility can manifest in the form of “identity trouble,” as young people struggle between belonging and running away, while attempting to maintain a coherent sense of self.
“…Geographical mobility was associated by all participants with social mobility; that is, it was treated as a pathway to increase quality of life and improve socioeconomic conditions as well as to diminish stigmatized features of place identity. However, those who actually experienced residential mobility tended to maintain deep emotional affinities to their stigmatized neighborhoods, something consistent with similar results in international research (Jorgensen, 2010; Kirkness, 2014; Manzo et al, 2008; Ortega, 2014). These results are aligned with some studies focused on the subjective implications of social mobility, as people may feel as an outsider in the new place, and indebted with the place of origin, feeling that they have to give back to the childhood neighborhood (e.g., Castillo, 2016; De Gaulejac, 2008; Salinas & Riquelme, 2015; Walkerdine, 2003):Maybe I will work for the wealthy, to win more money, but I will also work in deprived neighbourhoods.…”
Section: Social Exclusion Place and Stigmasupporting
As mobility is increasingly reshaping social relations, understanding how it affects new forms of social exclusion is an important challenge in today's polarized societies. From a political‐psychological perspective, this challenge requires recognition of how identity processes linked to exclusion are significantly shaped by sociospatial mobility practices. Identity, mobility, and exclusion are at the core of the psychological experience of people living in segregated areas from where they are impelled to leave. Building on this argument, we present a qualitative case study based on ethnographic and narrative methods, which aimed to understand identity processes among young people who have lived most of their lives in four “stigmatized neighborhoods” in Santiago de Chile. The analysis indicated that young people navigate a paradoxical identity project in such neighborhoods, driven by contradictory cultural mandates. This case study contributes to knowledge on how sociospatial exclusion and the politics of mobility can manifest in the form of “identity trouble,” as young people struggle between belonging and running away, while attempting to maintain a coherent sense of self.
“…6.2 A further aspect of belonging to place which is often overlooked is the sensory. It is worth noting that Monica's local area had been subject to the effects of radical de-industrialisation and had high rates of unemployment, deprivation and population turnover, factors commonly associated with a reduced sense of belonging (Jørgensen 2010; Fields 2011). Although Monica's account of decline was a familiar one, and resonates with Harry's above, what is interesting about Monica's narrative of a diminished sense of belonging is its articulation in terms of her sensory engagement with the neighbourhood.…”
In this paper, we discuss findings from a study on intergenerational relationalities in order to examine some aspects of how people over 50 years of age experience belonging in their everyday lives. Belonging emerged not as a single unitary ‘thing’, but a complex intersecting of relational, cultural and sensory experiences. We explore how people, place, time and cultural context intertwined in people's sense of belonging to place. Although much previous research on belonging has largely focused on geographical movement, we found that temporal movement, at an individual level in the form of ageing and at a collective level in terms of generational change, proved to be an important layer of our participants’ experiences of belonging and not belonging. Furthermore, we argue that people often come to understand and speak of temporal shifts in belonging in embodied terms, based on their sensory engagement with the world. The paper concludes by considering the consequences of this additional aspect of the experience of belonging for the study of belonging as a social and personal process, and how our findings contribute to debates around ‘ageing well’.
“…However, we are sceptical of Urry's flow theory and the idea of people's general dislocation and mobility as a basic condition. It does not take into account that contemporary people can also be very rooted and attached to places, and it creates a dichotomization between the global cosmopolitan and the local attachment, which by implication is constructed as conservative, deficient or even deviant (Gullestad 2006;Jørgensen 2010;Skeggs 2004).…”
This article is about transnational migrants, how they construct belonging to 'new' places where they have arrived, and how the feelings of belonging to their places of origin change when they go back. The theoretical part of the article outlines the relationship between migration and belonging arguing that there is a dynamic interplay between roots and routes in people's lives. The empirical point of departure is narratives about roots and routes by ethnic minorities settled in Aalborg East, an underprivileged neighbourhood in northern Denmark. One of the main findings is a gap between the national exclusion of transnational migrants marked as 'strangers' and border figures of the nation and a relatively high degree of local belonging to the neighbourhood. This is followed by an in-depth empirical analysis inspired by Alfred Schutz's distinction between the stranger and the homecomer. A somewhat paradoxical finding is that it appears to be more difficult for transnational migrants to maintain their roots in the country of origin when they go back than it was to establish new roots in the host country.
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