Belonging in Multilayered Spaces

Abstract

Belonging is both a choice – one seeks to belong – and is conditioned by external politics and social structures. Global forces and dynamics shape the politics of belonging in ways that help some and hinder others. Educational spaces are both settings for belonging, and they are structures that enable or impede belonging. While neoliberalism is shown here to be disruptive and destabilizing, transnationalism both enables, encourages, and impedes the search for new spaces for belonging. Global policy, curriculum, and pedagogy similarly engage in enabling and disabling, and, at the same time, can be entangled with neoliberal and transnational dynamics. In recognizing the multilayered tensions in our globalizing world, we may be better able to shape the politics of belonging for new possibilities where we can all feel more at home in educational spaces and beyond.