Searching for Belonging – An Analytical Framework

Abstract Belonging is a notion both vaguely defined and ill‐theorized. Scholars in various social disciplines often take this notion for granted, as if its meaning is somewhat self‐explanatory. Others tend to equate it with the notion of identity, citizenship, or both. By relying on a critical reading of an extensive literature across academic disciplines, this study aims to offer an analytical framework for the study of belonging. I argue that belonging should be analyzed both as a personal, intimate, feeling of being ‘at home’ in a place (place‐belongingness) and as a discursive resource that constructs, claims, justifies, or resists forms of socio‐spatial inclusion/exclusion (politics of belonging). The risk of focusing only on one of these two dimensions is to fall in the trap of either a socially de‐contextualized individualism or an all‐encompassing social(izing) discourse. The open question is whether the increasing cultural and ethnic diversification of contemporary societies can lead to the formation of communities of belonging beyond communities of identity.