Written by: Bonnie Stewart & Thu Thi Kim Le
Abstract: What does belonging mean in a learning context, in this globalized digital age? What practices – what combination of pedagogical, institutional, and cultural elements – can help foster an individual’s sense of being part of something bigger than themselves, educationally? And how do socio-material principles and approaches of digital belonging align with the literature on belonging as a placed and relational experience? The article explores how belonging as a signifier is shifting in contemporary Higher Education, risking weaponization and neutralization of the term. The paper offers a critical theorization of the terms belonging and State of Belonging (SoB), synthesizing how the concepts are framed and understood across axes of identity, culture, disciplinary field, and learning modality, through multiple theoretical lenses. The aim of the paper is to make visible the various ways in which SoB operates in the complex digital environments of higher education, with emphasis on how the concept consistently refers to relational connections and power relations, no matter the context.
Keywords: belonging, state of belonging, higher education, digital learning, participatory learning, place-based learning, topologies, relationality, weaponization