The Multiple Voices of Belonging: Migrant Identities and Community Practice in South Wales

Abstract

The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) argues that inclusion begins on day one of arrival in the UK and that successful inclusion is closely related to the standard of reception procedures and people's experience (2006). However, this paper argues that inclusion for migrants within Wales is a complex mixture both of belonging and of exclusion and is at once national, local, and multiple in its formation. This paper moves beyond statistics on belonging and community by attaching a more nuanced and detailed understanding of the everyday situation of belonging and community for migrants living in Wales. By highlighting the way in which belonging is multiscalar, operating in and through the everyday, and is influenced and driven by individual circumstance and context I demonstrate the complexities of this term. This paper draws on in-depth qualitative research conducted in South Wales to outline how migrants in this context attest to and negotiate multiple senses of belonging. In telling their stories, this paper offers new directions in how we approach the nature of belonging for migrant groups by drawing on the practice and performance of everyday life.