Achieving SofB through Value & Acceptance

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When it is said that people belong to a particular sex, race, class or nation, that they belong to a particular age group, kinship group or a certain profession, we are talking about people’s social and economic locations, which at each historical moment would tend to carry with them particular weights in the grids of power relations operating in their society (p. 12-13).

Yuval-Davis (2006) has not only acknowledged the varying grids of power, but also the contextual, historical, and situational influences on these structures of power and thus, how identities are valued.

For example, Yuval-Davis (2006) has written that being a woman or man, black or white, European of African, working or middle class, etc. will not carry the same meaning or experience across different social, geographic, and historical contexts. As such, the concept of social location can capture the dynamic way that 1.5GUY’s SofB is experience, including how these experiences shift due to context and changes in evaluations of one’s social identity.

3.3.1.1.1 Temporal Dimensions

Yuval-Davis’ (2006) acknowledgement that social locations are historical brings up an important, but often underemphasized point within SofB scholarship: temporality. Though rare, some scholars studying SofB and experiences of belonging have indicated the temporal nature of SofB. For example, Game (2001) has argued that feelings of being or coming home can refer to childhood memories, even more so than one’s current and physical place. Anthias (2006) has written that SofB entails feelings and experiences of community in the present, as well as envisioning oneself in one’s community into the future. Fortier (1999) has alluded to the importance of the past in creating current memories in her discussions about how repetitive actions become grounds for remembrances. Fenster (2005) has claimed that experiences of belonging and attachment are the result of accumulated knowledge,

memories, and experiences. While together, this scholarship suggests potential temporal dimensions in relation to the construction of SofB, time is a generally underemphasized influence, but one that should be explored in relation to 1.5GUY’s SofB.

3.3.1.1.1.1 Multidimensional Intersectionality & Translocational Positionality

Social locations are not just contextual, temporal, and relational; they are also multidimensional. For example, Yuval-Davis (2006) has written that social locations “are virtually never constructed along one power axis of difference” (p. 200) and for this reason, Crenshaw (1989) developed the concept of

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intersectionality to capture “the multidimensionality of marginalized subject’s lived experiences” (p.

139). Scholars studying experiences of belonging (e.g. Anthias 2002, 2006; Christensen, 2009; Yuval-Davis, 2006, 2007, 2011) have further argued for an intersectional approach when studying SofB, as they have acknowledged that the way individual and collective identities are judged cannot be understood in isolation of only one identity category.

Similarly, Anthias (2002, 2006) has argued that “translocational positionality” is necessary to capture the ways in which individuals are located in socially constructed axes of power and power differences, in turn influencing how individuals experience life. Quite similarly to the concepts of social locations and intersectionality, Anthias (2002) has conceptualized translocational positionality to be the

recognition “that issues of exclusion, political mobilization on the basis of collective identity and narrations of belonging and otherness cannot be addressed adequately unless they are located within other constructions of difference and identity” (p. 502; see also Anthias, 2001). Whether called social location, translocational positionality, or intersectionality, the collective points these scholars make is that individuals and their identities are judged as a result of a diversity and hierarchy of socially constructed values that are contextual, temporal, relational, and situational. As an individual’s experiences and opportunities are conditioned by these valuations, these will also likely influence SofB.

Yuval-Davis (2006) has furthermore emphasized that “intersecting social divisions cannot be analysed as items that are added up but, rather, as constituting each other…there is no separate concrete meaning of any social division” (p. 200). Thus, my research on the everyday experiences of SofB in relation to ULS can likely not only be explained as a result of one factor, e.g. ULS, but rather a range of

intersectional and inseparable characteristics such as race, age, gender, ethnicity, socio economic status, etc. that, depending upon context, can be prioritized, stigmatized, subordinated, or stereotyped.

In one situation, a particular characteristic—ascribed or achieved—may play the overarching role, whereas in another, a combination of factors may structure SofB.

Of experiences of belonging and social locations, Yuval-Davis (2011) has furthermore written:

There is no direct causal relationship between the situatedness of people’s gaze and their cognitive, emotional and moral perspectives on life. People born into the same families

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and/or the same time and social environments can have different identifications and political views. For this reason alone it is not enough to construct inter-categorical tabulations in order to predict and, even more so, to understand people’s positions and attitudes to life (7).

Scholarship on social location, intersectionality, and translocational positionality are important reminders that how identities are evaluated in social interactions is based on a diversity of influences that are constitutive, additive, and inseparable. In turn, this suggests not only a challenge of

pinpointing an exact cause for any particular emotion or experience related to SofB, but also that causal relationships are secondary to the experiences of SofB itself. I therefore acknowledge that not all 1.5GUY will have the same experiences related to SofB, regardless of whether they share the same age, immigration cohort, nationality, ULS, geographic location, gender, race, ethnicity, educational status, etc. focus on the experiences of SofB, rather than the cause/effect relationships.

3.3.1.2 Experiences of Non-Belonging

Discussions of how individuals experience SofB also inspire me to explore what SofB does not look or feel like, for example what emotions or experiences are not indicative of SofB, but instead reveal a challenged or absent SofB. To a large extent, however, existing scholarship associates SofB with positive emotions such as comfort, value, acceptance, safety, and commonality, and the related socially constructed experiences such as social relatedness, cohesion, fitting in, membership, and participation.

Anthias (2006) and Yuval-Davis (2006) have claimed that the desire for SofB becomes most strongly activated when threatened, also suggesting a need to think about experiences that are not indicative of SofB. Anthias (2006) wrote:

It is precisely when we feel destabilised, when we seek for answers to the quandaries of uncertainty, disconnection, alienation and invisibility that we become more obsessed with finding, even fixing, a social place that we feel at home in, or at least more at home with;

where we seek for our imagined roots, for the secure haven of our group, our family, our nation writ large (p. 21).

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This notion of “destabilization” can potentially capture what happens to 1.5GUY’s SofB when they encounter negative experiences such as, but not limited to, uncertainty, disconnect, alienation, or invisibility.

A challenged or absent SofB is undertheorized in the literature, which requires an examination of empirical discussions to elucidate the experiences and emotions not normally associated with SofB.

Fenster (2005) linked emotions such as fear, discomfort, harassment, and insecurity to “disbelonging”

in her study on women’s experiences in the public and private spheres. Plumwood (2002) has called

“disbelonging” the inability to remain in one’s home or place of attachment. Anthias (2002) found that British-born youth of Greek Cypriot heritage experience racism, discomfort, the inability to fit in, strong feelings of difference, and categorization as others, and described these experiences as not belonging. Christensen (2009) conceptualized “unbelonging” as the symbolic mark of difference, distinction, and exclusion, whether by imposition or choice. Notably, if feelings of discomfort or difference denote unbelonging, disbelonging, or non-belonging, then the opposite feelings—comfort and similarity—should also likely be added to those accompanied with SofB.

In their study of immigrants living in Aalborg East, Denmark, Christensen and Jensen (2011) discovered feelings of anger and hurt and concluded that the reality for these individuals is “non-belonging” at the national level. Christensen and Jensen (2011) cited Simmel’s (1998) concepts of the stranger and wanderer in relation to experiences of belonging. According to Simmel (1998), a stranger comes today and stays tomorrow, whereas the wanderer comes and leaves. Christensen and Jensen (2011) argued that a stranger is simultaneously close and far, inside and outside membership, and experiences belonging and non-belonging. While the scholars posited experiences of belonging as binaries—one either belongs or does not—their finding of simultaneous experiences related to belonging suggests that SofB may not always be neatly measurable. Whether termed non-belonging, unbelonging, or disbelonging, feelings and experiences of fear, discomfort, harassment, insecurity, racism, difference, anger, hurt, harm, and the inability to fit in are likely indicative of a challenged or absent SofB and thus should be considered in empirical investigations (Figure 1).

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Figure 1 Experiences of absent or “non-belonging”

In contrast to Christensen and Jensen’s (2011) findings of simultaneous belonging and non-belonging, Colombo, Leonini, and Rebughini (2009) findings suggests that non-belonging can be concurrently experienced in relation to two places, e.g. one neither belongs here, nor there. Colombo et al (2009) presented empirical data from research with second generation immigrant youth¹⁹ in Italy and linked feelings of being a “stranger” to having a confused SofB. For example, the scholars quoted a youth who said: “I now feel as if I don’t have a nationality…I don’t feel I belong to either…I mean, you know that you are a stranger, that you’ve come here to start again…so, sometimes I’m a bit confused”

(Colombo et al., 2009, p. 45-46). Whether the 1.5 neither feel attached to the peoples, places, or modes-of-being in the United States nor their homelands remains to be discovered, including the impact this has on their everyday SofB.

Cebulko’s (2014) research on 1.5 generation Brazilian immigrants in the U.S. with varying legal statuses—legal, liminally legal, undocumented, and naturalized citizens—found that youth feel

“simultaneously a part of, but not a full member of, Brazil or the United States. They are nostalgic for Brazil, but their networks and futures are rooted in the United States” (p. 159). This finding of

19 Colombo et al (2009) used “second generation,” but noted that their respondents include individuals who came to Italy as early as age seven, which is similar to my usage of the 1.5 generation, rather than the second.

ABSENT BELONGING

Experiences of: non-belonging, disbelonging, un-belonging, no place to belong

Associated feelings:

uncertainty; disconnect & alientation, invisibility;

fear; discomfort; harassment; insecurity;

difference & racism; inability to fit in; anger & hurt

Psychological consequences:

reduced sense of self-worth, stress, anxiety, depression & suicidal tendency’

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incomplete belonging, in combination with Colombo et al’s (2009) study suggests that confusing experiences of belonging could lead to an ambiguous SofB. However, the emotions and experiences related to SofB are often captured through binary and dichotomous terms, for example:

security/insecurity, acceptance/non-acceptance, comfort/discomfort, home/displacement, similar/different, etc. These findings inspire empirical exploration of the presence of negative experiences or emotions in relation to the concept of SofB. This scholarship particularly raises questions about how individuals actively or purposefully navigate these experiences of

“non-belonging,” including how they regain or attempt to regain SofB in the process. Because some scholars (e.g. Kumsa, 2006; Marshall, 2002; Probyn, 2006; Yuval-Davis, 2006) have argued that belonging entails desires for belonging and the longing to belong, examining the active coping strategies that 1.5GUY employ to regain SofB are not only important elements of this study, but also phenomenon that can potentially contribute to the existing understanding of the production of SofB in everyday life.