Identity and Belonging: conceptualisations and political framings

In this paper, I engage critically with the notions of belonging and identity, both as conceptual
tools and how they are embedded in political discourses, particularly those concerning
integration and diversity in the current period, with a focus on Britain. Belonging and identity
both raise questions about boundaries of ‘difference’, inclusion and exclusion. I subsequently
turn to the issue of integration and diversity and the dependency of the discourses
on notions of identity and belonging that are infused with assumptions about essentialisation,
culturalisation and hierarchisation. I will then argue for a different approach to the issues
of belonging and incorporation, and towards a recognition of the importance of location
and intersectional forms of dialogue and positionality which rely much more on notions
of solidarity building. An intersectional and cosmopolitan imaginary is able to recognise
diversities on the basis of shifting combinatories of location and positionality within a time
and space framework. This involves the recognition of the global and intersectional nature
of social bonds and interests and the need to move away from ethnocentric and national
based lens for achieving inclusion and social justice.