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Book part
Publication date: 29 May 2018

Floya Anthias

Purpose – In this chapter I engage with central debates in sociology regarding ways of thinking about identity, belonging and diversity. The purpose is to provide a critical…

Abstract

Purpose – In this chapter I engage with central debates in sociology regarding ways of thinking about identity, belonging and diversity. The purpose is to provide a critical engagement with the problems involved, at both a conceptual and political level and to suggest ways forward.

Approach – I critically examine and compare the notions of belonging and identity, both as conceptual tools and how they are embedded in political discourses, particularly on issues of diversity. I also examine diversity and superdiversity and propose a translocational lens as a useful means for rethinking the issues involved, both conceptually and politically.

Findings – Belonging and identity can be seen as part of the same ‘family’ of concepts, and while both are used politically in similar ways, belonging enables a greater engagement with place and location and the structural and contextual facets of social life. Notions of diversity and superdiversity are highly normative, and an intersectional and translocational analysis is proposed.

Social Implications – It is suggested that dominant notions of belonging, identity and diversity essentialize and perpetuate social boundaries of otherness and that those policies that use such notions, particularly integration policies, fail to address issues of participation, access and parity, which are necessary for the development of an inclusionary society.

Originality – The chapter engages critically with important issues of theory and practice and contributes to the development of theoretical tools for understanding central issues of social and political debate. It develops a ‘translocational’ lens for understanding social divisions in society.

Details

Contested Belonging: Spaces, Practices, Biographies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-206-2

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 29 May 2018

Katherine Pratt Ewing

Purpose – This chapter examines the problem of belonging for Muslims in the United States in a political environment where Muslims are increasingly represented as a threatening…

Abstract

Purpose – This chapter examines the problem of belonging for Muslims in the United States in a political environment where Muslims are increasingly represented as a threatening ‘other’ by conservative politicians and right-wing media. The goal is to demonstrate how an emotionally charged event, the murder of three middle class Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 2015, was taken up by the media in ways that reflected sharply contested political agendas and constituted divergent stories and biographies of belonging and stigmatization for the victims, their families and the broader Muslim community.

Approach – The research draws on a wide range of media representations of the murder, including local, national and international news sources and social networking sites. The analysis is based on close readings of this range of stories.

Social Implications – The analysis demonstrates that this murder drew widespread attention in the Muslim community because these particular victims readily became representative of a Muslim ‘model minority’. Despite the ambivalence associated with belonging on such terms, the families and Muslim community used the stories of these murder victims to speak out against negative stereotypes and to remind the American public of the dangers of inflammatory rhetoric.

Originality – The chapter takes an original approach to the problem of belonging by tracing in detail how a single event can generate divergent stories that mark their narrators as belonging in ways that are contested by others, vividly demonstrating the process of différance articulated by Derrida.

Details

Contested Belonging: Spaces, Practices, Biographies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-206-2

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Overcoming Workplace Loneliness
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-502-1

Abstract

Details

Contested Belonging: Spaces, Practices, Biographies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-206-2

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2023

Iuliana M. Chitac

Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs (RWMEs) are amongst the largest EU migrant communities in the UK and make significant socioeconomic contributions to both their host and…

Abstract

Purpose

Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs (RWMEs) are amongst the largest EU migrant communities in the UK and make significant socioeconomic contributions to both their host and origin nations, but academic research and policy discussions have ignored them. Intersectionality raises complex contextual issues that require comprehensive examination and inclusive policies and programmes. This study is aimed at exploring how Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs experience their transnational intersectional journeys of belonging, as they create, negotiate and enact their intersectional identities of the country of origin, gender and being entrepreneurs in the UK and Romania.

Design/methodology/approach

This Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) draws on draws upon Crenshaw's (1991) intersectional and Social Identity theories (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) to investigate how nine interviewed RWMEs have experienced their transnational journeys of acculturative belonging in the UK and Romania.

Findings

The study findings show how RWMEs undo and negotiate their intersecting identities to adhere to socio-cultural standards in both their host and native nations. In the UK, they feel empowered as women entrepreneurs, but in patriarchal Romania, their entrepreneurial identity is revoked, contradicting the prescribed socio-cultural roles.

Research limitations/implications

This study responds to the call regarding inequalities in entrepreneurship opportunities (Vershinina et al., 2022). By focussing on the understudied community of RWMEs and exploring new intersectional and transnational contextual insights, it contributes to the literature and practice of migrant entrepreneurship. These empirical findings are essential for the development of evidence-based, disaggregated entrepreneurship programmes and policies.

Originality/value

This study responds to the call regarding inequalities in entrepreneurship opportunities (Vershinina et al., 2022). By focussing on the understudied community of RWMEs and exploring new intersectional and transnational contextual insights, it contributes to the literature and practice of migrant entrepreneurship. These empirical findings are essential for the development of evidence-based, disaggregated entrepreneurship programmes and policies.

Details

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2554

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 24 May 2022

Mauro Giardiello and Rosa Capobianco

Purpose: The aim of the chapter is the analysis of the processes of inclusion and/or exclusion experienced by Italian and immigrant students who live in rural areas. This chapter

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of the chapter is the analysis of the processes of inclusion and/or exclusion experienced by Italian and immigrant students who live in rural areas. This chapter specifically focuses on the forms of belonging that they develop in their districts and at school.

Study approach: The analysis is based on a mixed methods study that was carried out in a middle school of a rural town in Central Italy. For the research, a focus group was first carried out with middle school students, then a semi-structured questionnaire was administered to the students. Privileged witnesses (e.g., school managers, people working for voluntary associations, social service operators, political actors) were also interviewed. Their interviews provided additional information about the territory under study.

Findings: Findings indicate that school reproduces processes of stigma and marginality for immigrant school students. This is best illustrated through their sense of belonging to the district in which they live and the school where they attend.

Originality: This study analyzes the lives of young migrants and their Italian peers who live in a rural area of Italy. Additionally, it considers the processes that schools play in promoting inclusion and exclusion among young migrants and Italians. This work contributes to the literature on children and youth migrants, as well as the sociology of education. It motivates future research on the experiences of life and schooling among migrants who live in rural communities.

Details

Children and Youths' Migration in a Global Landscape
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-539-5

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 29 May 2018

Jacomijne Prins

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to show how Moroccan-Dutch young people discuss national belonging in a context fraught with experiences of exclusion.Design and…

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to show how Moroccan-Dutch young people discuss national belonging in a context fraught with experiences of exclusion.

Design and Methodology – Data were collected in three rounds of focus groups with the same Moroccan-Dutch participants, addressing a different aspect of their identity in each round. To analyse the data, a narrative approach was used that considers both the import of stories as well as the contextual opportunities and constraints for sharing stories.

Findings – The analyses show how participants used ‘subjunctive stories’, which highlight the possibility of alternative meanings, to address the controversial issue of national belonging without contradicting the dominant storyline of exclusion. While the Dutch national identity could not be explicitly adopted – at least not in the company of their peers – Moroccan-Dutch young people imagined what national belonging might look like in their stories.

Research Implications – An approach to narrative that considers its subjunctive properties may sensitize researchers to the ways in which people express hopes and desires in spite of macro- and microcontextual constraints.

Value/Originality – This study takes issue with the tendency in academic research on belonging to focus on exclusion; it shows how the actual narratives reveal a longing to belong, even in the face of exclusion.

Details

Contested Belonging: Spaces, Practices, Biographies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-206-2

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Contested Belonging: Spaces, Practices, Biographies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-206-2

Book part
Publication date: 29 May 2018

Margarethe Kusenbach

Purpose – This chapter examines place-based social practices and experiences, conceptualized as ‘belonging’, among older Americans who live in senior mobile home communities in…

Abstract

Purpose – This chapter examines place-based social practices and experiences, conceptualized as ‘belonging’, among older Americans who live in senior mobile home communities in Florida.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Pursuing a grounded theory approach, the chapter is based on 18 ethnographic interviews with senior mobile home households, conducted between 2005 and 2007.

Findings – Following lifestyle migration, senior Floridians developed interrelated, yet distinct, forms of belonging within their varying social and spatial environments, combining elements of selective, elective and resistant belonging.

Originality/Value – The study participants’ focus on shared and socially valued group characteristics in their construction of place-based identity problematizes the possibility of a successful integration of outsiders, raising new questions for the concept and future study of belonging.

Details

Contested Belonging: Spaces, Practices, Biographies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-206-2

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 10 October 2023

Sandra Cohen and Sotirios Karatzimas

The scope of this study is to explore informed citizens' engagement in the development of real municipalities' popular reports. For this purpose, an exploratory experiment is…

Abstract

Purpose

The scope of this study is to explore informed citizens' engagement in the development of real municipalities' popular reports. For this purpose, an exploratory experiment is performed where potential users of popular reports with certain accounting skills (i.e. groups of undergraduate accounting students) act as preparers of these reports.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses insights from the sense of belonging theory in an ambivalent way: to explain citizens' interest in popular reports and to consider popular reports as an impetus triggering citizens' sense of belonging. By content-analyzing the reports developed and taking stock of the students' perceptions on aspects of popular reports, a template for a popular report for local governments is synthesized. Further, by comparing the study findings with theoretical recommendations and popular reporting practices, the authors offer insights on the content and layout of popular reports which is expected to enhance the sense of belonging of citizens within their city.

Findings

The undergraduate students while relying on earlier examples and existing models have created their own reports in which they have used financial and non-financial information indicating the significance of both types of information for citizens. The evidenced heterogeneity in the developed reports is expected to be the effect of the sense of belonging. Moreover, the study reveals citizens' positive stance toward the adoption of co-development and co-creation approaches in the design of popular reports by citizen groups and municipal authorities which is consistent with a sense of belonging mobilization.

Originality/value

This study adds to the literature on the content and characteristics of popular reports by giving voice to the citizens themselves through an exploratory experiment that permits the sense of belonging to take effect.

Details

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, vol. 35 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1096-3367

Keywords

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