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30 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

how these paradoxical narratives relate to As will be explained later in the chapter,
discourses on human and state security. neither citizenship nor identity can encapsulate
Finally, it will highlight some of the gen- the notion of belonging which encompasses
dered dimensions of that discourse. them, but also includes the emotional dimen-
Belonging is a deep emotional need. sion of attachment. Like other hegemonic
Countless psychological, and even more, constructions, belonging tends to become
psychoanalytical, works have been dedicated ‘naturalized’ and thus invisible in hegemonic
to writings about the fears of separation of formations. It is only when one’s safe and
babies from the womb, from the mother, stable connection to the collectivity, the
from the familiar (for the most elaborate homeland, the state is threatened that belong-
accounts of this, see, for example, Bowlby, ing becomes articulated and reflexive. It is
1969, 1973; Rank (1973 [1929]). It is impor- then that individual, collective, and institu-
tant to emphasize that the need to belong and tional narratives of belonging become politi-
the fear of separation exist even in cases of cized and give rise to various social and
sexual and other abuse in the family, and political movements which promote specific
even when the environment of the womb constructions of belonging as their projects.
itself proves to be far from the perfect haven This politicization tends to focus on the
in which all the needs of the baby are being ‘“dirty work” of boundary maintenance’
satisfied (Fodor, 1949; Lake, 1966; Mott, (Crowley, 1999: 30). Indeed, as Adrian Favell
1
1948 ). argues (1999: 211), the ‘boundary problem’ is
Belonging and the yearning to belong, archetypal to the politics of belonging.
however, have not only been central in psy- Constructing borders and boundaries that
chological discourse. To some extent, one differentiate between those who belong and
could claim that one of the prime concerns of those who do not determines and colors the
sociological theory since its establishment meaning of the particular belonging. All too
has been the different ways in which people often people talk about otherness on the one
belong to collectivities and states – as well as hand, and crossing borders on the other hand,
the social, economic, and political effects of without paying attention to how these bor-
instances of the displacement of such belong- ders and boundaries are actually imagined by
ings as a result of industrialization and/or people who are positioned towards them in
migration. Some classical examples are different ways. At the same time, many
Tönnies’ distinction between Gemeinschaft recent theories of identity emphasize – and
and Gesellschaft as the two major ways in often celebrate – the ever changing, fluctuat-
which people belong to communities and ing, and contested nature of identities. Such
collectivities (1940 [1935]), Durkheim’s dis- theoretical articulations can sometimes dis-
tinction between mechanical and organic sol- guise ways in which the exercise of power
idarity which, again, examines ‘pre-’ and may fixate subjugated identities and create
‘modern’ ways of belonging (1933 [1893]), what Amrita Chhachhi (1991) calls ‘forced
or Marx’s notion of alienation (1975 [1844]) identities’, and impose what Kubena Mercer
which examines the effects of displacement (1990), under somewhat different conditions,
and human commodification. Anthony calls ‘the burden of representation’.
Giddens (1991) has argued that during However, it is important to relate the
modernity, people’s sense of belonging notion of belonging to the differential posi-
becomes reflexive, while Manuel Castells tionings from which belongings are imag-
(1997) claims that contemporary society has ined and narrated, in terms of gender, class,
become a ‘network society’ in which effec- race and ethnicity, sexuality, stage in the life
tive belonging has moved from the civil soci- cycle, etc., even in relation to the same com-
eties of nations and states to reconstructed munity and in relation to the same bound-
defensive identity communities. aries and borders (Yuval-Davis, 2006a, b).