It is commonly assumed that we live in an age of unbridled individualism, but in this book Montserrat Guibernau argues that the need to belong to a group or community is a pervasive and enduring feature of modern social life.

The longstanding European conception that Roma and non-Roma are separated by unambiguous socio-cultural distinctions has led to the construction of Roma as “non-belonging others.” Challenging this conception, Textures of Belonging explores how Roma negotiate and feel belonging at the everyday level. Inspired by material culture, sensorial anthropology, and human geography approaches, this book uses ethnographic research to examine the role of domestic material forms and their sensorial qualities in nurturing connections with people and places that transcend socio-political boundaries.

Focusing on the significance of place, connection and relationship in three poets who are seldom considered in conjunction, Rory Waterman argues that Philip Larkin, R.S. Thomas and Charles Causley epitomize many of the emotional and societal shifts and mores of their age. Waterman looks at the foundations underpinning their poetry; the attempts of all three to forge a sense of belonging with or separateness from their readers; the poets’ varying responses to their geographical and cultural origins; the belonging and estrangement that inheres in relationships, including marriage; the forced estrangements of war; the antagonism between social belonging and a need for isolation; and, finally, the charged issues of faith and mortality in an increasingly secularized country.

Taking recent German debates of diversity terminology as a case example for scrutinizing enactments of genealogy that assume a linear image of progressive generation, this book engages with performative effects of genealogical stories in academic texts that negotiate conceptual belonging. While supporters of the developing Diversity Studies in Germany cherish diversity’s potential for multi-category investigations, Gender and Women’s Studies critics reject the term for its neoliberal, managerial rationale, allegedly holding profit above social justice. Genealogies and Conceptual Belonging intervenes in this oppositional debate by turning one’s attention to narrations of the origins of "gender" and "diversity" that suggest their proper place in the present. Presenting a story about dis/continuous genealogies and highlighting complicated interferences between gender and diversity, Marten forges novel future connections between questions of gender, sexual difference, and diversity. This pioneering volume will be of particular interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and postdoctoral researchers interested in the fields of genealogy, Gender Studies, feminist theory, feminist science studies and critical race / diversity / intersectionality studies.

Locality and Belonging provides an international overview of the relationship between identity and territory with case studies from Indonesia, Zanzibar, Argentina, South Africa and the UK.

The root of all inequality is the process of othering – and its solution is the practice of belonging We all yearn for connection and community, but we live in a time when calls for further division along the well-wrought lines of religion, race, ethnicity, caste, and sexuality are pervasive. This ubiquitous yet elusive problem feeds on fears – created, inherited – of the "other." While the much-touted diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are undeniably failing, and activists narrowly focus on specific and sometimes conflicting communities, Belonging without Othering prescribes a new approach that encourages us to turn toward one another in unprecedented and radical ways. The pressures that separate us have a common root: our tendency to cast people and groups in irreconcilable terms – or the process of "othering." This book gives vital language to this universal problem, unveiling its machinery at work across time and around the world. To subvert it, john a. powell and Stephen Menendian make a powerful and sweeping case for adopting a paradigm of belonging that does not require the creation of an "other." This new paradigm hinges on transitioning from narrow to expansive identities – even if that means challenging seemingly benevolent forms of community-building based on othering. As the threat of authoritarianism grows across the globe, this book makes the case that belonging without othering is the necessary, but not the inevitable, next step in our long journey toward creating truly equitable and thriving societies. The authors argue that we must build institutions, cultivate practices, and orient ourselves toward a shared future, not only to heal ourselves, but perhaps to save our planet as well. Brimming with clear guidance, sparkling insights, and specific examples and practices, Belonging without Othering is a future-oriented exploration that ushers us in a more hopeful direction.

From their own recovery, the authors discovered that the best way to change ourselves is to change our image of God. Recovery is then rooted in finding a healthier, more authentic way of belonging. Pointing the way to new depths of hope and personal resources of inner healing, the Linns' honest, generous and intimate sharing is at times painful, but always liberating.

What if belonging isn't something to attain, but someone to become? Sarah E. Westfall takes our longing to belong as an invitation to embrace and extend God's love. Teaching a posture of welcome in the way of the Father, she guides us toward a deep connection where our humanity draws us closer to people and envelops us in the heart of God.

Contributions address the sites, practices, and narratives in which belonging is imagined, enacted and constrained, negotiated and contested. Focussing on three particular dimensions of belonging: belonging as space (neighbourhood, workplace, home), as practice (virtual, physical, cultural), and as biography (life stories, group narratives).

Wogeo Island is well-known to anthropologists of Papua New Guinea through the work of Ian Hogbin. Based on substantial fieldwork, the author builds on and expands previous research by showing how Wogeos establish and maintain social relationships and identities connected to place and movement in the physical landscape. This innovative study demonstrates how Wogeo worldviews and social organization can be described in relation to terms of movements, flows and placements in the landscape while, in turn, the landscape is constituted and made meaningful through people’s activities and buildings. The author not only addresses some of the key issues in contemporary anthropology concerning place, gender, kinship, knowledge and power but also fills an important gap in Melanesian ethnography.