Belonging
Paola Dusi e Fabio Olivieri
University of Verona and Roma Tre University

The concept of “belonging” is used in different scientific spheres, from the legal arena to the philosophical, psychological and sociological fields precisely because it is central to human life, representing as it does a “border” marking individuals’ inclusion or exclusion from the family, social or political group. There is no such thing as subjects who may be considered “unencumbered”, that is, lacking any form of belonging (Sandel, 1984). People are born into families, relational networks, and given societies, and these ascribed affiliations contribute to defining their representations, beliefs, and habits.
Belonging refers to an essential need, the need to be able to count on a certain number of significant, positive and stable relationships. The perceived deficiency of belonging is what drives human beings, due to aggregate and delineate common goals, experiencing meaningful feelings of sharing. People feel the need “to join, and to belong” (Maslow, 1987, p. 20) to a group or community. Reflecting on the etymology of the reflexive pronoun “self”, Benveniste (2001) highlights the close connection between the individual and the community. The etymon gives rise to two conceptual groups: one that narrates the belonging of the self to a group of peers and one that refers to subjectivity, but in this case a form of subjectivity expressed as belonging.
Belonging owes its nature to a number of tribal legacies that animate the collaborative principles of human beings and community as the aim of coexistence for the purposes of evolution. While there is no one shared definition of the term community, the concept of belonging can be found in all its various conceptualizations. Community can only exist if its members acknowledge each other as individuals united by symbolic-relational ties.
Belonging defines us and is always manifold. As part of this multiplicity of aspects, religious and linguistic-cultural differences play a key role in defining the dynamics of identity, mutual recognition and belonging. In post-modernity, the subjective turn and the heterogeneity of the groups that make up societies affect identity-based and identity-building processes, social and political dynamics in various ways. On one hand, the tendency to privatize how we represent our selves renders the ties between the individual and his or her society of reference looser; on the other hand, multi-ethnicity exposes the complexity of belonging, revealing its ambiguity and complexity. Even as forms of belonging proliferate, they also intersect on local and global levels; at the same time, these forms of belonging are broken up and divided, which leads to the breaking of ties and fuels the drive towards individualism. Belonging is thus no longer an ascribed datum but rather a multidimensional compound, an amalgam of different factors. In a context in which the areas of experience individuals share are both increasingly numerous and narrower, belonging is continually renegotiated through interactions with the other and the surrounding environment and is accompanied by new struggles waged by individuals and groups to gain recognition for themselves and their rights.
Belonging is also a crucial feeling in educational contexts, where students experience their social belonging (or the lack of it) first-hand. It is so important because it captures the feeling of being recognized and supported by teachers, peers and the school environment, thus fostering learning and skill-building (Nussbaum, 2011). As Dewey writes (1958, p. 65), educational quality “is realized in the degree in which individuals form a group”. This is why the theme of belonging is a central issue in the RE-SERVES project, which focuses in particular on the new generations and the educational processes designed for them. What is at stake is their ability to thrive as people and their desire to engage for the common good.

Selected references

Benveniste, É. (2001). Il vocabolario delle istituzioni europee. Economia, parentela, società (Vol. I). Einaudi.

Dewey, J. (1958). Experience and Education. Macmillan.

Maslow, A.H. (1987). Motivation and personality (3^rd ed.). Addison-Wesley Longman.

Nussbaum, M.C. (2011). Creating capabilities. The Human Development Approach. Cambridge (Mass.): The Belknap Press.

Sandel, M.J. (1984). The procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self. Political Theory, XII, 1, 81-86.