Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Belonging'
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Elamin, Heba Hassan Bella Mohamed. "Belonging." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/53701.
Full textAbstract:
No, she is not my mom, not my
aunt, we are not family. Yes, we do
look alike, we do live in the same
neighborhood, we smell the same
coffee beans each morning, and
we share the same zip code. The
only difference between us is I
do have an actual address here,
she does not. Yes, she must have
lived here much longer than me,
she has a history in this town, a
lot of the people would recognize
her smiling spirit right away,
yet she only occupies a corner in
a street near a coffee shop most
of the year. Everyone knows that
space is hers, except the legal papers.
Where are you from? The question
may seem so simple, but regardless
of how many times I am asked the answer
has never been so easy for me
each time I am asked, and I am asked
very often. Belonging, identity, countries,
tribes, bloodlines and borders are things
that confuse me a lot, and for that I decided
to do my thesis about them, trying to
find an answer to a simple question, in a
very complicated universe.
I chose to study these matters through
a transitional program, in a transforming
neighborhood and for users who are in
their most confused age; an international
6 boarding school in Dupont circle.Master of Architecture
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Brochu, Bernard. "Senses of belonging and not belonging during job loss." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0011/MQ39136.pdf.
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Harlow, Natasha Pia. "Belonging and belongings : portable artefacts and identity in the civitas of the Iceni." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2018. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/52229/.
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The Late Iron Age in northern East Anglia ends with the Boudican revolt in 60/61 CE, after which, the people known as the Iceni were subsumed by the Roman empire. This thesis tests the archaeological evidence for the Iceni as a defined group, demonstrated by the distinctive character material culture in the region. It investigates the theory that they were slow to adopt Roman imports and luxury goods, either as a form of deliberate resistance or due to cultural retardation following the Boudican revolt. It also questions the interpretive narrative of the Iceni as ‘Other’, in both Classical and modern sources. My research expands upon previous studies, which have often been restricted to a single county, time period, or class of artefact. It includes a broad study of the three counties most closely associated with the Iceni: Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The chronological range (circa 100 BCE-200 CE) incorporates the Claudian invasion, Boudican rebellion and several generations either side. A large dataset of over 14,000 object records has been examined, drawn from county Historic Environment Records (HERs) and the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS). This project reassesses many of the long-held stereotypes about the Iceni in the light of the dramatic increases in metal-detector finds over the past 20 years. This thesis demonstrates that: • A single unified social entity (‘the Iceni’) is not archaeologically visible across the study area, although there is intra-regional patterning. • Iron Age modes of expressing status and identity persisted under Roman rule, through the manufacture, use and display of objects. • Evidence is lacking for regional impoverishment and depopulation in the aftermath of the Boudican revolt. • Metal-detected surface finds have significant research potential when viewed across a wide area and in conjunction with stratified sites.
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Mourgue, d'Algue Amélie. "Belonging in mother tongues." Thesis, Royal College of Art, 2018. http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/3458/.
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What does it mean to belong? On the one hand, belonging is the dynamic, internal, intimate, individual experience of relating to others and being part of a ‘we’ that remains undetermined. On the other hand, belonging is the result of an external act of attribution, a fixed assignation of identity. Both are essentially carried in and through language. I propose that belonging is made possible by the act of coming to speaking and the experience of being heard. I explore this possibility through a social art practice that works with the poetic, emotive, reflexive and phatic function of the word, especially when spoken, and of the photographic image, still or moving. My research outputs, often the results of encounters and collaborations taking place in specific places, function as examples of what it means to belong. Throughout this research project, I draw on the experience of living in between one’s mother tongue and other languages in order to demonstrate how immersing oneself in a language different from the language one grew up in radically reconfigures a subject’s identity and sense of belonging. The Bulgarian-French psychoanalyst, literary theorist and poet Julia Kristeva writes that in between silence, your element is silence. Breaking that silence and coming to speaking and writing in a new language transforms the relation between subject and language into a dynamic and emancipatory relation, reassessing what makes a language maternal and proposing a reformulation of what it means to belong. The experience of belonging is connected to the practice of place. Over the past couple of years, I have developed my research in between three different kind of places: the fine art research seminar room, conversing with fellow researchers who live in between languages, the Masbro community centre in Hammersmith, London, working with the students and teachers of English as a Second Language (ESOL) classes, and my home, which is the place where I live with my family, welcome my relatives and friends and develop my work.
5
He, Xie. "An Architecture of Belonging." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/102432.
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As the placeless globalization is accelerating around the world and especially in China, places that have strong ties to the particularities of a locale are desirable destinations to escape the generic monotony of placeless urbanization.
The thesis here stipulates that even in a placeless globalization, opportunities exist to understand, interpret and celebrate local cultural phenomena. While many formal architectural artifacts may have outgrown their purpose and no longer have direct relevance today, a number of desires, customs and rituals persist as desirable conditions to be supported by architectural space.
The thesis proposes to seek out an architecture, that embraces and reinterprets targeted aspects of the built form of traditional elements with modern means.Master of Architecture
This thesis discusses possibilities to reinterpret the vernacular. Specifically, the sense of identity generated by the architecture traditions in Western China can be attributed to shape and construction of the roof, organization in plan, the central fire place, and a protected courtyard all enclosed by rammed earth. Reinterpretations of those elements in modern forms propose a continuity of culture and identity.
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Yarker, Sophie Katharine. "Belonging in Byker : the nature of local belonging and attachment in contemporary cities." Thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/2619.
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This study is about how we live in cities. It is about the nature of the relationships we have to the places in which we live, whether we feel a sense of attachment and belonging to local communities and what the nature of these attachments might be. Specifically it asks what are the characteristics of local belonging and attachment in cities today? What circumstance shape and influence these attachments and how are they affected by processes of urban change? Despite drawing on sets of literature from across the social sciences, the research demonstrates the value of a geographical lens in analysing these questions by demonstrating both the social and spatial nature of an individual’s sense of belonging. Located primarily within literatures from human geography, the work of this thesis seeks to move this discussion forward from relational discussions of mobility in everyday life, by acknowledging the importance of both place and mobility for understanding and explaining attachment and belonging. Based on the exploration of local belonging and attachment in a local community in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, two conclusions were reached. Firstly the nature of local attachments as being characterised by sets a set of three characteristics; comfort and confidence, commitment and contribution, and irony and critical distance and secondly, the basis of such attachments as unfolding as a process within the materiality of everyday life in place, pointing to both the territorial and relational nature of such attachments. In doing so, the research argues for an understanding of attachment to place as a process with affective dimensions as well as spatial practice within the everyday and secondly, to recognise the agency or the desire to belong as part of these active negotiations. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the potential for an understanding of the place of local belonging within human geography debate, reiterating the value of a complimentary understanding of both territorial and relational approaches to place.
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Snowden, Suzanne. "Marginalised belonging: Unaccompanied, undocumented Hazara youth navigating political and emotional belonging in Sweden." Thesis, Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS), 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-21956.
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This paper investigates the current situation of the youth that applied for asylum in Sweden in 2015 as Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC). Specifically the former UASC youth from the Hazara ethnic group who were denied asylum yet are still living as undocumented in the municipality of Malmö, Sweden in 2018, now aged between 18 to 21 years old. This case study employs a hermeneutic-constructivist approach utilising semi-structured interviews with 10 of these Hazara unaccompanied, undocumented asylum seeking (UUAS) youth to examine their experiences and perspectives in terms of political and emotional belonging to communities and places in which they experience some form of marginalisation. Theories surrounding the concepts of belonging which consists of both emotional and political elements will be used, along with ‘othering’, to frame the youth’s experiences. The results of this study demonstrate how political belonging affects emotional belonging in various ways depending on context. The study also highlights how the impact of elements within both forms of belonging are assessed by individuals, and how these considerations are instrumental to a migrants decision to remain in, or leave, a location. This study also calls for further research in this field on these concepts of belonging affect marginalised groups.
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LOBO, ROSANA CORREA. "AMORES EXPRESSOS: NOT BELONGING NARRATIVES." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2010. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=16215@1.
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Investigação de como se configura hoje a representação do imaginário
nacional na literatura brasileira - cujos momentos altos foram o Romantismo e o
Modernismo - e pensar se ocorre um possível fim deste ciclo, uma vez que, como
parece indicar o projeto Amores Expressos (Companhia das Letras / RT Features), a
nação já não ocupa mais o centro de um sistema de significação na nossa literatura.
Busca-se ver como nos primeiros romances já publicados pelo projeto – Cordilheira
(2008), de Daniel Galera, O filho da mãe (2009), de Bernardo Carvalho e Estive em
Lisboa e lembrei de você (2009), de Luiz Ruffato, ambientados respectivamente em
Buenos Aires, São Petersburgo e Lisboa - a representação da realidade local e de
uma identidade unificada e homogênea abre espaço para uma representação
cosmopolita de um mundo cujas identidades estão em crise.This abstract presents an investigation of how the representation of the national image is established in brazilian literature, a period in literature when Romanticism and Modernism were the most remarkable. My aim is to investigate if it is possible to have closure to this cycle, since the project Amores Expressos (Companhia das Letras/RT Features) seems to indicate, the nation no longer occupies the center of a signifying system in our literature. The idea is to examine in the first novels published by the project - Cordilheira - (2008), by Daniel Galera, O filho da mãe (2009), by Bernardo Carvalho, and Estive em Lisboa e lembrei de você (2009), by Luiz Ruffato, which are set, respectively in Buenos Aires, Saint Petersburg and Lisbon.how the representation of the local reality and of a unified and homogeneous identity make space for a cosmopolitan representation of a world in which identities are going through a crisis.
9
Wolff, Lauren. "International students' sense of belonging." Scholarly Commons, 2014. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/213.
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Student sense of belonging in universities is tied to increased retention rates and satisfaction with university experience. However, international students may be experiencing low levels of belonging, especially with American students. From a survey that asked students about their sense of belonging to the university, with American students, and with other international students, it was found that ethnic background had an impact on the level of belonging and connection. Through interviews with four Chinese females and two Caucasian males, further information was gathered about their experiences that contributed to or inhibited their sense of belonging. Themes such as discrimination, levels of English fluency, and participation in groups on campus emerged as some factors for why some students felt a high sense of belonging when others felt a low sense of belonging. Suggestions for how to improve university services to increase sense of belonging were addressed at the end of the study.
10
Pardini, Jill Kristen. "Being Myselves to Belonging Together." ScholarWorks @ UVM, 2020. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/1186.
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This dissertation utilizes an autoethnographic methodology to explore experiences and memories from my own life, while applying a critical cultural and multidisciplinary lens to tell a story about how (un)learning is intertwined with living. By creating a story combining autobiographical elements, science fiction, and cultural critique, this work both draws the reader into reimagining what is possible (Dixon-Romån, 2017), while encouraging the reader to step outside of the conventional modes of academic learning, just as I did in writing it (Sousanis, 2015). This autoethnography includes five encounters inspired by Styres (2017) framework for centering indigeneity in learning (Adams & Jones, 2011; Ellis, 1995). Each encounter engages different embodied experiences (e.g. physical, cognitive, emotive, natural, and spiritual), and aligns it with personal memories that explore the realities and potentialities of trying to belong. This begins with my own self-identities and spirals outwards to include my role amongst various species, with others in society at large, across the planet, and in the Universe most broadly. Specifically, this research asks the question: what is it that I need to (un)learn to belong?
This is just one story. It’s my story. So, while it is perhaps not broadly generalizable even for those individuals sharing pieces of my identities that often box us in, the knowledge produced through this type of critical and creative scholarship offers a generative path so “that others can take [it] in and use [it] for themselves… the kind of understanding that make[s] me want to do as well as understand” (Ellis, 2002, p. 401 & 404). By engaging and creatively analyzing content such as: my queerness, my settler colonial positionality, my whiteness, and my complicity in climate change I share the (un)learning I needed to start belonging better in this world. The fifth and final encounter attempts to share an experience of the spiritual all around us, all the time. By imagining a space where all beings are held sacred, it is my hope that we begin to see the possibilities of what we need to (un)learn to belong together.
11
Torkko, Deborah Ann. "Penelope Lively, Janice Kulyk Keefer, and Janette Turner Hospital : readings of belonging and not belonging." Thesis, University of Sunderland, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.424797.
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Bennett, Julia. "Doing belonging : a sociological study of belonging in place as the outcome of social practices." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2013. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/doing-belonging-a-sociological-study-of-belonging-in-place-as-the-outcome-of-social-practices(b413f20a-66b7-45db-a34a-44097ef17aea).html.
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Place is disguised, hidden or simply ignored in much sociological research. Belonging, however, has become a focus of sociological concern. This thesis proposes that one way of belonging is through belonging-in-place leading to a sociological positioning of place as an active participant in social life. In much sociological research places have been seen as fixed and essentialised. To avoid this problem, this study turned to geography and anthropology for suitable frameworks incorporating an open, fluid and relational understanding of place. In particular, Ingold’s (2000) concept of the ‘taskscape’ has been used to understand the connections between place, people, activity and time. The thesis argues that ‘imagined’ and narrativised places create only an ‘outer layer’ of belonging and that it is through embodied connections to other people in the place (what I call a ‘peoplescape’) and through inalienable connections to material places over time that a three dimensional ‘ontological belonging’, as a way of being (and doing) in the world, can develop. Belonging, often spoken of as a sense or feeling, is here shown to be the outcome of social practices, by embodied beings, in a material place.The research took a phenomenological approach in order to see the life-world of the participants from within. A multi-dimensional belonging was uncovered through various user driven qualitative methods: biographical interviews and photo and written diaries with families who have lived in one place, Wigan, for at least three generations. The diaries detailed social encounters which revealed that knowing other people and being known are crucial to an embodied belonging-in-place. Taking photos alongside the diaries enabled specific places of importance to the respondents to be discussed and these revealed that places can be passed on, as inalienable gifts, from one generation, or one life phase, to the next. Inalienable traces of previous generations of Wiganers are present in the material place. The phenomenological methodology and the mix of qualitative methods enabled an inductive analysis which disclosed the everyday life-world of these people in this place. Diaries, both written and photographic, together with other respondent directed methods could be used more widely to explore seemingly mundane aspects of social life from the perspective of the participants. The research found that place is not merely a backdrop to social life but is an integral part of the social practices carried out by embodied and emplaced people. A greater emphasis on both place and materiality as they impact social life could enhance much sociological research.
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Goodman, Cecil. "Landscapes of Belonging| Systematically Marginalized Students and Sense of Place and Belonging in Outdoor Experiential Education." Thesis, Prescott College, 2017. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10278854.
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This qualitative case study explores the intersection of social justice pedagogy and Outdoor Experiential Education (OEE) sense of place and belonging curriculum. The purpose of this study was to gain a comprehensive understanding of, and engage in critical analysis of how students systematically marginalized by race, ethnicity, and/or class experienced sense of place and belonging in OEE. Data was collected through in-depth interviews of OEE Students and Interns of Color, and White OEE field instructors at one program site, as well as through the critical textual analysis of program materials. Theoretical and conceptual frameworks for this study used Critical Race Theory, critical multiculturalism, the cultural construction of the Outdoors, and core concepts from OEE scholarship. Data analyses revealed existing institutional and curricular inequities in OEE for Students of Color. To address these systemic inequities, findings supported the adoption of social justice pedagogy across the field of OEE. Specific recommendations for future practice as a result of the research included the implementation of equity and inclusion trainings for field instructors, professional development programs for OEE field instructors and administrators of Color, and the development of curriculum across the field of OEE to understand the implications of the cultural construction of the Outdoors in order to better serve a racially and ethnically diverse OEE student population.
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Barbour, Yael. "Fresh blood, a consideration of belonging." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape16/PQDD_0011/MQ29141.pdf.
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Dabdoub, Noura. "Homeland redefined spaces of national belonging /." Connect to resource, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1811/30109.
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Jassal, Lakhbir. "Memory travels : death, belonging and architecture." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/1506.
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This thesis examines the tension and cooperation between politics of conformity and difference that are embedded in urban spaces, such as burials and mosques in Britain and beyond. It examines the social, political and cultural ideologies and complexities of the historical past and present by focusing on death, belonging and architecture. It will show that the past has become re-imagined and embedded into the postcolonial concrete present. Thereby, carving out new national traditions and memories that travel through time and space. The study suggests that urban space, although often ignored is important not only for our everyday consciousness and social realities, but is pivotal to examine and study especially in relation to national policies, such as “multiculturalism”.
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Noble, Christina. "Return migration and belonging in Ireland." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2018. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=239038.
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Alrabei, Tareq. "Dynamics of belonging in Bidun literature." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2016. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/26665/.
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Gamboa, Jorge C. "Liminal Being| Language, Becoming and Belonging." Thesis, California State University, Long Beach, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10825284.
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The present study sought to examine institutional and personal factors that affect the sense of belonging of adult immigrant English-learners in a community college. Specifically, this qualitative study analyzed the lived experiences of twenty-one adult English-learners currently enrolled in a large California community college. Language and Critical Race theory was used a theoretical lens to help understand how language proficiency, instructional policies and practices and social factors affect the extent to which this population feels included and as part of the greater campus community. The study found that proficiency in English was the most salient factor in both enhancing the level of connectedness to campus life and hindrance in accessing linguistic and academic resources. Also, the study revealed that the most effective approach to fostering a greater sense of belonging for adult English-learners was providing high-touch experiences through a robust peer mentorship program. Thus, the findings suggest institutionalizing targeted student support services and professional development that will assist educational practitioners to better support adult English-learners to college completion.
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DeWitt, Brett. "Campus Building Aesthetic and Anticipated Belonging." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1595263689309523.
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Cheryan, Sapna. "Strategies of belonging : defending threatened identities /." May be available electronically:, 2007. http://proquest.umi.com/login?COPT=REJTPTU1MTUmSU5UPTAmVkVSPTI=&clientId=12498.
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Phillips, Lonnie B. "Belonging a pastoral journey toward community /." Online full text .pdf document, available to Fuller patrons only, 2001. http://www.tren.com.
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Hajek, Lisa. "Belonging and resilience a phenomenological study /." Online version, 2003. http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2003/2003hajekl.pdf.
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Cook, Kevin Michael Brooks. "Probability of Belonging to a Language." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2013. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/4023.
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Conventional language models estimate the probability that a word sequence within a chosen language will occur. By contrast, the purpose of our work is to estimate the probability that the word sequence belongs to the chosen language. The language of interest in our research is comprehensible well-formed English. We explain how conventional language models assume what we refer to as a degree of generalization, the extent to which a model generalizes from a given sequence. We explain why such an assumption may hinder estimation of the probability that a sequence belongs. We show that the probability that a word sequence belongs to a chosen language (represented by a given sequence) can be estimated by avoiding an assumed degree of generalization, and we introduce two methods for doing so: Minimal Number of Segments (MINS) and Segment Selection. We demonstrate that in some cases both MINS and Segment Selection perform better at distinguishing sequences that belong from those that do not than any other method we tested, including Good-Turing, interpolated modified Kneser-Ney, and the Sequence Memoizer.
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KHATOON, RABEYA. "Whirling Hybrids: A Dichotomy Of Belonging." VCU Scholars Compass, 2019. https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/5892.
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Migration is a phenomenon wherein individuals relocate from one country to another, albeit temporarily or permanently, for numerous reasons. The State of Qatar is a highly diverse nation with a large population of foreign residents. According to Priya D’Souza, as of 2017, 60 percent of the resident population in Qatar are from South Asia. Growing up in this environment, third culture kids develop a unique, hybrid culture through experiencing multiple cultures. This research investigates a dichotomy of belonging from the perspective of South Asians in Qatar. A series of hybridized spinning tops were produced in collaboration with a South Asian artisan. These hybridized artifacts are infused with sensory materials in order to elicit an emotive response, engage memory, and celebrate the merging of diverse cultures.
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Pugh, Janet Mariana. "Belonging and not belonging : understanding India in novels by Paul Scott, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and V.S. Naipaul." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 1993. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/1618.
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This thesis is essentially about the "how" and "why" of the Indian experience as documented in novels by Paul Scott, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and V S Naipaul. The study points to the difficulty of arriving at any conclusive definition of the country and its people. I show that differences in attitudes, responses or behaviour are both overt and subtle, and depend upon whether the writer or the character identifies with the situation or community with which he or she interacts. It is the individual's sense of belonging or not belonging to his or her own group - be this along racial, cultural or gender lines - that accounts for the differing perspectives evident in these novels. The points-of- view of the outsider and the insider can therefore be seen as mutual comments upon the other. Since the struggle between belonging and not belonging becomes acute when the old meets the new, focus is centred on communities experiencing change. These include the British in India, West-Indian Indians and westernised Indians. Despite their differences, all three communities share similar reasons for either an acceptance or rejection of the 'Other'. The thesis argues that the need for emotional stability compels allegiance to the traditional group, while the desire for individuality encourages surrender to the new. The former nurtures a sense of belonging while, it is argued, that the latter is perceived as the hallmark of those who do not belong. Tensions arise when both these needs demand to be met. What I show to be ironic in this struggle between belonging and not belonging is that those things which individuals overtly reject are often unexpressed parts of their personal pysche. The barrier between "them" and "us" is therefore very fragile.
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Ward, Matthew Alan James. "Searching for belonging : an exploration of how recent university graduates seek and find belonging in new church communities." Thesis, Durham University, 2016. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11825/.
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Young graduates are a group who have much to offer to the life of the church, but there are many who do not make a transition from belonging to a church while students to belonging after graduation. This thesis explores the experiences of recent graduates as they seek out new church communities. In doing so it seeks to build a greater understanding of the challenges they face, the processes by which they search for and find belonging in new church communities, and why some do not succeed in finding a church to which they feel they can belong. It offers a survey of literature relating to church leaving and, taking an interdisciplinary approach drawing upon material related to theories of social capital and consumer culture, as well as theological perspectives, examines a range of understandings of belonging. Using a qualitative longitudinal research method it explores the experience of recent graduates. Building on analysis of the data generated, it develops a model that illustrates the process by which those graduates searched for, and moved towards, belonging to new church communities. This model is illustrated through biographies of belonging, formulated for each of the participants. The thesis offers theological reflection upon three themes that emerge from the data analysis. First, it explores the relationship between consumer approaches to belonging and faith. Secondly, it examines what it means to receive an invitation to contribute to the life of the church community. Thirdly, it reflects upon what it means to dwell with God. Finally, the thesis draws upon its findings in offering suggestions for the transformation of practice among three groups of people: university chaplains and others who work with Christian students; churches that receive new graduates; and students who are preparing to leave university.
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George, Amber Elizabeth. "Interpreting dislocation gathering a sense of belonging /." Diss., Online access via UMI:, 2007.
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Montgomery, V. "Identity, Integration and Belonging : Muslims in Ireland." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.517559.
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Drew, Rose. "An Exploration of Buddhist Christian Dual Belonging." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.500251.
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Gidley, Ben. "Citizenship and belonging : East London Jewish radicals." Thesis, Goldsmiths College (University of London), 2003. http://research.gold.ac.uk/11852/.
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This thesis is about citizenship and belonging: how citizenship has articulated with or against different forms, practices and spaces of belonging. It examines Jewish East London in the period from 1903 to the end of the First World War and is based on original archival research. It argues that this period saw the emergence of a new form of racialized biopolitical citizenship, which was normalized in the "state of emergency" that was the war. This citizenship was framed by the imperial context, was based on singular 1e1it her/or" identities and was defined against the figure of alien. The thesis also argues that, in the same period, an alternative space of political belonging existed in East London, based on different forms of political rationality and threaded through with multiple loyalties and identifications, that challenged the either/or logic of the nation-state. Consequently, Jewish radicals who operated in this alternative public sphere developed understandings of political belonging which cut against the grain of the nation-state, and thus offer resources for thinking about citizenship today. The thesis seeks to unsettle some of the conventional languages of citizenship and political belonging by historicizing them: by concentrating on the specific way in which modern citizenship emerged in imperial Britain, and on the material processes by which this citizenship was policed and mapped. The thesis examines a series of different spaces and scales of political belonging. It attempts to keep in focus regimes of visibility, subjectification and governmentality that produce these spaces and the practices of belonging and cultural traditions that wove through them.
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Pascale-Hague, David. "EXPLORING BISEXUAL-IDENTIFIED PERSONS EXPERIENCES OF BELONGING." UKnowledge, 2015. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/edp_etds/36.
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Belonging is a basic and fundamental human need (Baumeister, & Leary, 1995) that is associated with psychosocial health (Cohen, 2004). Unfortunately, community belonging is a challenge for those with a bisexual identity. Binegativity, minority stress, and the invisibility of bisexual-identities may interfere with attempts to develop a sense of community belonging (Bradford, 2004). Little systematic research has examined bisexual-identified people’s perceptions and experiences of belonging to a community. This project addressed the question, “What are bisexual individuals’ experiences of community belonging/social exclusion?” Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of 12 bisexual-identified persons. Interview transcripts were analyzed using a constructivist grounded theory methodology (Charmaz, 2006). Findings indicated that bisexual-identified persons encountered stigma and at times concealed their sexuality in order to create community belonging. However, risking authenticity, rather than concealing identity, seemed to help participants deal with stigma and develop more meaningful community belonging. Bisexual-identified persons who risk disclosing their identity and develop a sense of authenticity may increase their opportunities for community belonging. These findings are discussed in relation to their implications for counseling bisexual-identified persons and educating the communities in which they live.
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Da, Mota Santos Paula Julia. "Porto's historic centre and materiality of belonging." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.414289.
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El, Akel Nesrine. "Identity and belonging in Spanish-Moroccan literature." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2018. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/identity-and-belonging-in-spanishmoroccan-literature(441b624e-b0d4-4b5d-93e4-d8c46714793e).html.
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This thesis examines literature written in Spanish by Moroccan authors and Spanish authors with a Moroccan background. It includes the study of literature produced in colonial and post-colonial Morocco, as well as that which was produced in Spain after the first migration flux of the late 1980s. The thesis is in three parts. The first considers the influence, impact and heritage left by the Spaniards during their time in Spanish Morocco (1912-1956). It examines how the Protectorate cultivated in Moroccans a sense of belonging in respect of the Hispanic world and how this is reflected and eventually challenged in local literature. A central motif in this period is Al-Andalús, which helped create an imaginary homeland for Moroccans that transcended national borders. The second part turns its attention to matters of postcolonial identity. Covering the period from the moment of Moroccan independence in 1956 until the present, it examines writers’ need to reclaim a specifically Arab identity in the wake of their colonial past. In this context, we consider how writers negotiate notions such as modernity and tradition, and how the sense of identity which they convey in their work is informed by or defined against social, cultural and political realities, especially in the treatment of sex and sexuality. The third and final part of the thesis investigates the period from 1990 onwards, which corresponds to possibly the most productive time for literature written by Moroccans in Spanish (or indeed Catalan, since Catalonia was the destination for many migrants in the 1980s). Considering the literature produced both by Moroccans who had settled in Spain and those still writing from Morocco and from the Spanish enclaves, it explores the dominant themes of the time, such as immigration, double identities, cultural betrayal and belonging, with a view to understanding how writers assert their multiple identities through their work and against the background of misconceptions about what it means to be Spanish or Moroccan or both.
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Mylles, Alexander. "Belonging, being and borders : understanding collective identities." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2008. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/54685/.
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This thesis is a theoretical analysis of organisational identity, community and belonging. I use a debate concerning transgender inclusion/exclusion to exemplify the identity work of the Council members of Morton Hall, a UK based public sector LGB organisation. I draw on a range of queer, feminist and post-structural theorists in explicating the processes of dis/identification that I have observed. I elucidate the complex, and often contradictory, relationship between gender and sexuality by employing discourse/narrative analysis on the transcripts of interviews and meetings of the organisation. The reasons given by Council members for either including or excluding transgender from the organisation give insights into the identity constructions of the individuals themselves, and of the organisation as a whole. This is combined with a diverse and distinctive theoretical approach which aims to utilise contemporary queer and gender theory as well as less obvious thinkers such as Nietzsche, Durkheim, Hegel, Bataille and Deleuze and Guattari. Using these theorists I develop the argument that the transgression of normative gender codes is central to the creation of a boundary between gender and sexuality which instigates the exclusionary practice adopted by the organisation at the conclusion of the debate. Whilst the research site specifically relates to sexual and gender identity, the theoretical conclusions regarding the construction of collective identity and the formation of community are widely applicable.
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Broughton, Kelly M. "Students’ Sense of Belonging in Study Space." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1571956186042992.
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Hansson, Karin. "Accommodating differences : Power, belonging, and representation online." Doctoral thesis, Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för data- och systemvetenskap, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-108836.
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How can political participatory processes online be understood in the dynamic, conflicted and highly mediated situations of contemporary society? What does democracy mean in a scenario where inequality and difference are the norms, and where people tend to abandon situations in which they and their interests are not recognized? How can we accommodate differences rather than consensus in a scenario where multiple networks of people are the starting point rather than a single community? In this thesis, these questions are explored through an iterative process in two studies that have used or resulted in three prototypes and one art exhibition. The first study is of communication practices in a global interest community, which resulted in two prototypes: Actory, a groupware that takes differences rather than equality as the starting point for a collaborative tool, and The Affect Machine, a social network where differences are used as a relational capital. The second study is of communication practices in a local commonality where the art exhibition Performing the Common created a public space and involved participants. This resulted in Njaru, a collaborative tool with integrated decision support and visualization of representativeness. In summary, these works depart from the notion of the importance of belonging for e-participation, where the individual can be seen as a participant in several performative states, more or less interconnected trans-local publics. Here the individuals’ participation in the local public sphere compete with their participation in other communities, and affect the conditions for local democracy. This thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of these processes, and discusses how differences in democratic participation can be managed with the help of ICT.Hur kan politiskt deltagande på Internet förstås, i de dynamiska, konfliktfyllda och medierade situationerna i dagens samhälle? Vad innebär demokrati i ett scenario där ojämlikhet och skillnad är normen och där människor tenderar att överge situationer där de själva och deras intressen inte erkänns? Hur kan vi hantera skillnader snarare än konsensus i ett scenario där flera nätverk av människor är utgångspunkten i stället för en enda gemenskap? I denna avhandling har dessa frågor utforskas genom en iterativ process i två studier som har använt eller resulterat i tre prototyper och en konstutställning. Den första studien gäller kommunikationen i en global intressegemenskap vilket resulterade i två prototyper: Actory, som tar olikheter snarare än jämlikhet som utgångspunkt för ett samarbetsverktyg, och The Affect Machine, ett socialt nätverk där olikheter används som ett relationskapital. Den andra studien gäller kommunikationen i en lokal gemenskap där konstutställningen Föreställningar om det gemensamma skapat ett offentligt rum och engagerade deltagare. Resultatet resulterade bland annat i Njaru, ett samarbetsverktyg med integrerat beslutsstöd och visualisering av graden av representativitet i processen. Sammanfattningsvis utgår dessa arbeten från en idé om vikten av tillhörighet för e-deltagande, där individen kan ses som en deltagare i flera performativa stater, mer eller mindre sammankopplade translokala målgrupper. Här konkurrerar individernas deltagande i den lokala offentligheten med deras deltagande i andra samhällen, och påverkar förutsättningarna för lokal demokrati. Denna avhandling bidrar till en djupare förståelse av dessa processer, och diskuterar hur skillnaderna i demokratiskt deltagande kan hanteras med hjälp av IKT.
At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Submitted. Paper 8: Submitted.
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Capps, Matthew Alan. "Characteristics of a sense of belonging and its relationship to academic achievement of students in selected middle school in Region IV and VI Education Service Centers, Texas." Texas A&M University, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/1584.
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The purpose of this research is to investigate the feeling of belonging that students may or may not have and the relationship of student sense of belonging to the overall academic achievement of a school. Students were surveyed on their sense of belonging in selected middle schools. The students scored themselves on the Psychological Sense of School Membership scale, which revealed an overall mean score of belonging. Students from high-performing schools were compared to students from low-performing schools in regard to their sense of belonging. Additionally, teachers were asked to rate their perception of the students sense of belonging. The teachers scores were compared to the students scores in both high- and low-performing schools. Lastly, teachers were asked to provide qualitative information about the schools role in creating a sense of belonging. An extensive review of the literature regarding sense of belonging reveals support of the importance of sense of belonging in student achievement. There is also extensive evidence regarding variation of sense of belonging among minority groups and the important role of teachers in creating a sense of belonging for students. This study found that there is no significant difference in students reported sense of belonging between high-performing schools and low-performing schools on the Psychological Sense of School Membership scale. There is a significant difference between the teachers perception of the students sense of belonging and the students reported sense of belonging on the Psychological Sense of School Membership scales. Teachers reported important roles in creating an environment of belonging. The qualitative data provided by teachers support evidence from the literature review indicative of schools with sense of belonging. High-performing schools do not report much information regarding discipline and routine as being important parts of creating belonging. However, low performing schools often report these as important to creating a sense of belonging for students. Implications of the research include:
Teachers may not have an accurate understanding of students sense of belonging and how to create a sense of belonging in schools. Further study should try to gain better understanding of the relationship between sense of belonging and minority status.
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Magee, Anna. "The creative dance of love and consciousness : an integral, phenomenological inquiry into the experiences of belonging and not-belonging." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2014. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/52070/.
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This is an Integral and Phenomenological Inquiry into the experiences of 'belonging' and 'not-belonging'. Using Wilber's Integral Operating System and its AQAL model as a basis, the inquiry brings together the interior and exterior dimensions of individual and collective experiencing. With an emphasis on embodiment, its approach to method incorporates a Participatory axiology and leans upon Gendlin's philosophy for its interpretative framework. The thesis considers some of the complex individual and social phenomena which are implicit to a sense of alienation and the behaviour of marginalisation, as well as those inherent to the movements of integration, healing and growth. Multiple methodologies combine to integrate evidence which reflects the four quadrants of the AQAL model. Included here is a Case Study of the social dynamics of a Norfolk town and the perceptions of 'marginal' groups within that community. Gendlin's approach of ‘Thinking At the Edge’ is used, as well as individual and group contemplations which contribute to building the overall narrative of the thesis. Discourses of individual and community development, identity and consciousness are considered along with those of attachment, trauma and Gendlin's idea of 'stuck processes'. Even with its inherent risks, in this thesis it becomes clear that the experience of not-belonging is as fundamental and vital to individual and collective development as is that of belonging. Our belonging and not-belonging are two protagonists in a grand narrative. Between them an essentially creative, evolutionary dynamic emerges – a dance between love and consciousness.
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Shaulskiy, Stephanie Levitt. "Belonging Beyond the Classroom: Examining the Importance of College Students’ Sense of Belonging to Student Organizations for Student Success." The Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1478522948950651.
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Ahn, Mi Young. "Sense of belonging as an indicator for social capital : a mixed methods analysis of students' sense of belonging to university." Thesis, Bangor University, 2017. https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/sense-of-belonging-as-an-indicator-for-social-capital-a-mixed-methods-analysis-of-students-sense-of-belonging-to-university(c54c267b-f939-4463-9763-a58d12fcc398).html.
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Social capital, from the collective social capital theory perspective, is constituted by trust, social network and participation. Social capital is agreed to be crucial for civil society and wellbeing, but there is no general consensus on how to define and measure it. Sense of belonging shares important meanings with social capital, but is more amenable to measurement. Social capital, primarily a metaphor, is elastic, implicative, and versatile, whereas belonging is a more concrete and tangible concept that is suitable for the measurement. This research explores how belonging is related to social capital, and examines whether belonging can be used as an indicator for social capital. A mixed methods, qualitative and quantitative research design was developed to collect data on students’ sense of belonging to Bangor University. A new instrument, the 10 Words Question, was developed to elicit participants’ own thoughts and feelings, while a survey questionnaire was used in parallel, with questions about belonging, social capital, and demographic information. The empirical analysis reveals that there are four main domains of belonging, academic and social engagement, surroundings, and personal spaces. This challenges previous research on the subject in the UK. The findings suggest that students’ sense of belonging is strongly associated with social capital. Further conceptual and statistical analysis shows that there is significant overlap with each of the main components of social capital. One implication of the study is that a one-dimensional approach to students’ sense of belonging to an institution may result in poorly targeted and ineffective policies. The research highlights the complex characteristics of belonging, so if students’ belonging is to be used to promote academic success and retention, more conceptually refined approaches and empirically detailed evidence will be required. This research also demonstrates that belonging data can be used as a simple alternative indicator for social capital.
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Carriere, April Bella Lilas. "Taking Root: Media, Community, and Belonging in Ottawa." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/35247.
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This thesis employs a post-anarchist influenced lens and develops a collective capacity framework in order to explore how the media consumption and production practices of the Chinese Canadian, Latin American, and Somali Canadian communities in Ottawa, Canada, can strengthen these communities’ ability to facilitate the process by which immigrants become community members and form a sense of belonging in Ottawa. The thesis explores both how ethno-cultural media can help newcomers to form a sense of belonging and become part of a local ethno-cultural community, as well as how such media can help members of minority ethno-cultural communities become part of the broader local community and to form a sense of belonging in Ottawa, and Canada more broadly. Throughout, the thesis identifies and explores the differences that emerge between the three communities in order to gain better insight into the potential benefits of ethno-cultural media.
In order to explore and to answer these questions, the thesis employs quantitative and qualitative methods. It relies on analysis of secondary literature, raw data from the OMMI 2012 Survey, raw content coding of local Chinese and Spanish language media carried out as part of the Ottawa Multicultural Media Initiative, and primary research consisting of content coding of a Somali Canadian television program.
The main contribution of this thesis lies in offering a new lens through which to assess the integrative potential of ethno-cultural media. Approaching the question from a bottom-up, relationship-centred perspective has yielded different findings than those generally reported in Canadian ethno-cultural media research. Although there were significant differences in terms of media use and media production between the three communities, the findings revealed that all three used ethno-cultural media in ways that had the potential to help them in the process of settling down and taking root in a new city, and of helping them to form a sense of belonging.
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Watson, David Rowan Scott. "Precious Little: Traces of Australian Place and Belonging." University of Sydney, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1098.
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Master of Visual ArtsThe Dissertation is a meditation on our relationship with this continent and its layered physical and psychological ‘landscapes’. It explores ways in which artists and writers have depicted our ‘thin’ but evolving presence here in the South, and references my own photographic work. The paper weaves together personal tales with fiction writing and cultural, settler and indigenous history. It identifies a uniquely Australian sense of 21st-century disquiet and argues for some modest aesthetic and social antidotes. It discusses in some detail the suppression of focus in photography, and suggests that the technique evokes not only memory, but a recognition of absence, which invites active participation (as the viewer attempts to ‘place’ and complete the picture). In seeking out special essences of place the paper considers the suburban poetics of painter Clarice Beckett, the rigorous focus-free oeuvre of photographer Uta Barth, and the hybrid vistas of artist/gardener Peter Hutchinson and painter Dale Frank. Interwoven are the insights of contemporary authors Gerald Murnane, W G Sebald and Paul Carter. A speculative chapter about the fluidity of landscape, the interconnectedness of land and sea, and Australia’s ‘deep’ geology fuses indigenous spirituality, oceanic imaginings of Australia, the sinuous bush-scapes of Patrick White, and the poetics of surfing. Full immersion is recommended.
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Crockford, Fiona, and Fiona Crockford@ausaid gov au. "Contested Belonging: East Timorese Youth in the Diaspora." The Australian National University. Faculty of Arts, 2007. http://thesis.anu.edu.au./public/adt-ANU20080803.140946.
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This research explores East Timoreseness as a complex and evolving identity in which Timorese 'frontiers', both physical and psychic, have been drawn and redrawn over time and through space. It deals specifically with the sense of displacement and ambiguity that underpins the social identities of young East Timorese living in Australia during a period of intense political transformation in East Timors recent history (1997-1999).
¶
Acknowledging the diversity of experience among diasporic youth, the study focuses primarily on young nineties Timorese, that is, those who were in their teens or early twenties when they fled East Timor in the wake of the Dili Massacre in 1991. It considers the ways in which they negotiated their experiences of displacement and the immensity of a highly politicised Timorese identity, often framed by young people themselves in terms of an embodied weight and a viscerally deep, and occasionally overwhelming, sense of moral responsibility. In the diaspora, the evocation of traumatic memory has been central to the preservation of a uniquely East Timorese identity and its reconstitution in a breached world. Memory has thus been called upon to legitimate a very specific and homogenous East Timorese identity and to reconstruct it through public ritual. Yet an over-determination of such a monological discourse threatens to subsume the heterogeneous experiences and possible alterities of young Timorese and the diversity of Timorese cultural expression. This study explores the interplay between a monological discourse that articulates a cohesive public identity that implies an authentic East Timoreseness and a dialogical discourse through which more ambiguous and hybrid identities emerge.
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I begin by tracing the strands of history, culture, myth and power that combine to produce totalising representations of East Timoreseness and youth as patriotic and self-sacrificing collectivities. I argue that the exigencies of the struggle for independence from Indonesian occupation depended upon a very specific enactment of youth within East Timor through which East Timorese youth acquired a potent and heroic role. Yet the potency of this politicised identity has always been unstable and provisional, both within and outside of East Timor. As well, such an identity is both enabling and confining for young Timorese since its performance is always infused with power structures and relations that are both socially and spatially contingent.
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I then explore processes of identity formation and re-evaluation among young diasporic East Timorese in depth. Removed from the immediacy of struggle, the 'doing' of youth among young diasporic East Timorese inevitably shifts according to the different knowledge formations that frame and produce 'youth' and particularly 'migrant youth' in host countries. While young Timorese often feel caught between apparently contradictory practices and constructions of youth, and discourses that oppose 'Timoreseness' and 'Australianness' (as well as Timoreseness and Indonesianness), there is always room for slippage. Thus, I draw upon examples of their cultural negotiations in the world of the arts to show how young East Timorese sought to engage in meaningful forms of social action and deployed various forms of testimonial as a self-affirming and identity-validating practice. Through practices of music, poetry and theatre young East Timorese, in different ways and with varying force, deploy cultural strategies that are not necessarily inimical or unsympathetic to the concerns and political imperatives of older generation Timorese. The everyday narratives of young Timorese, however, reveal that their identities are entangled in the complex interplay of a number of divergent and interdependent structuring dispositions: the personal and the collective; the global and local; difference and continuity; freedom and constraint. The management of these tensions, as well as the uncertainties of their legal status in Australia and political upheavals within East Timor itself, required the creation of strategies of identity that drew upon both existing and new cultural referents and resources. The experiences of young diasporic East Timorese thus highlight the dialectical and contingent character of intercultural experience and social identities.
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Williams, Kirsty. "Structures of belonging : the poetry of Seamus Heaney." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2003. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1748/.
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This thesis is divided into three parts – Word, Body and Transubstantiation. Collectively these are the central motifs of Catholicism’s Eucharist. According to Scripture, Christ is the word made flesh. The Eucharist recalls his words and actions at the Last Supper when he shares bread and wine with his disciples and tells them that they are his body and blood. In the Catholic faith partaking of wine and bread during the communion of mass is believed to be a partaking of the real presence of Christ. By consuming the body (bread) and blood (wine) of Christ, the participating community symbolise their collective belonging in and to Christ. The Catholic Eucharist consequently explodes difference in a utopic leap of faith whereby transubstantiation conflates and reconciles language and physical being, sub specie eternitatis. Whilst it is a religious formation, a relationship between word and body and their overlap also maps into preoccupations in recent philosophical and cultural theory which bear on Seamus Heaney’s poetry. Rather than converging word and body through a utopic leap of faith (transubstantiation), poststructuralism (following Saussure) posits an irreconcilable interstice between signifier and signified and (in the language of Derrida) infinitely defers meaning. Psychoanalysis (following Lacan) suggests desire is a consequence of the space between signifier and signified. Anthropological and sociological body theories (following Foucault) propose a disparity between corporeality and discursive constructions of bodies. Questions of a persistent gap in secular philosophy are therefore opposed to a sacred structure (converging word and body in a utopic leap of faith) that is most clearly marked and symbolised in the Catholic Eucharist. By appropriating this religious structure and these cultural theories, an ongoing secularisation of belonging in Heaney’s poetry emerges.
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Jivraj, Suhraiya. "Interrogating law's religion : non-Christianness, belonging and nationhood." Thesis, University of Kent, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.544089.
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Grabham, Emily Katharine. "Temporal flesh : regulating bodies through belonging and time." Thesis, University of Kent, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.544053.
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Fay, Michaela. "Mobile belonging : an exploration of transnational feminist connections." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.497278.
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This thesis presents an analysis of the dynamic relationship between mobility, feminism and belonging. Drawing on data collected through (cyber)ethnographic on the International Women's University 'Technology and Culture' (ifu), held in Germany in 2000, and its online extension, virtual ifu (vifu), it explores how attachments are constructed and enacted in contemporary feminist networks. I present findings of participant observation, face-to-face interviews and online research (mailing list analysis and online questionnaires conducted on the platforms of vifu).
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Walsh, Katie Joan. "British expatriate belonging in Dubai : foreignness, domesticity, intimacy." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.417134.
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This thesis analyses expatriate belonging through an ethnography of the British in Dubai. As an account of diasporic or transnational belonging, it is fully grounded in the complexity of everyday lives. This is achieved by exploring expatriate experiences of foreignness, domesticity and intimacy, three thematic strands that are attentive to contemporary theory in their recognition that belonging is embodied, material and emotional respectively. Each of the ethnographic chapters contributes to particular theoretical literatures. Focussing on the construction and enactment of foreignness in the daily lives of expatriates, the first chapter situates the British within Dubai's complex, racialised, social hierarchy and draws on theories of `whiteness' and an unsettling, bodily, experience of `culture shock', to complicate our understanding of expatriate racisms. In the second ethnographic chapter, the thesis explores domestic material culture in British expatriates' homes, analysing belongings and the homemaking practices in which they are involved, including display, remembering, shopping and cleaning. The third part of the thesis highlights the emotional geographies of expatriate intimacy as they are negotiated transnationally and within Dubai in (gendered) practices of relatedness, conjugality, conviviality, friendship and dating. Finally, a personal reflection on the ethnographic research experience also links my experience of ethnographic fieldwork closely into these themes. More generally then, by using this theoretical trinity combined with ethnographic research, the thesis illuminates the interdependence of the (trans)national and local, the material and imagined, as well as movement and attachment, in the everyday complexity of lived belonging. It is argued that British expatriate belonging is characterised by multiplicity, ambivalence and everyday negotiative effort.
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Wernesjö, Ulrika. "Conditional Belonging : Listening to Unaccompanied Young Refugees’ Voices." Doctoral thesis, Uppsala universitet, Sociologiska institutionen, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-216417.
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This thesis explores negotiations of belonging among unaccompanied young refugees in Sweden. The thesis further aims to shed light on methodological aspects of bringing out their voices. The analysis draws on postcolonial and poststructuralist approaches to belonging and relates belonging to the concepts of home, place, racialization and notions of “Swedishness”. The thesis analyses qualitative interviews with 17 young people, who arrived in Sweden as unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors and have been granted permanent residency. The interviews are complemented with walk-alongs and photography-based interviews. Paper 1 gives an overview and discussion of research on unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors. I argue that there is a lack of their voices in the research, and that their own agency and perspectives are not addressed due to a focus on vulnerability and emotional health (or lack thereof). Paper II, which is delimited to participants in a rural village, shows that they negotiate belonging and a sense of home related to places but that othering is constraining. In paper II and III I suggest that the participants’ belongings and position in Sweden can be understood as conditional due to othering and racialization. In paper III, I argue that expressing gratitude can be understood as a form of impression management and, thus be a strategy to negotiate their position in the interview setting as in the host country. I finally argue that in order to understand the participants’ negotiations of belonging attention has to be paid to their agency as well as the conditioning of belonging in discourses and in interactions on the local level.