Positioning the Concept of Belonging

As outlined, many researchers have conceptualised belonging by differing between individual feelings and senses of belonging, and collective constructions of belonging often referred to as the politics of belonging (Antonsich, 2010; Juutinen, 2018; Stratigos, 2015a, 2015b;

Stratigos, 2016; Stratigos et al., 2014; Sumsion et al., 2018; Yuval-Davis, 2006). As Stratigos et al. (2014) recommended the politics of belonging as a research focus for investigating how belonging operates in younger children’s peer groups, there is a risk of a narrow scope solely on practices and discourses as warned by Antonsich (2010). Although the politics of

belonging are more accessible and observable, I concur with the view that only examining such aspects may imply a risk that children’s individual experiences are overlooked and that children’s belonging as an experiential state, as suggested by Sumsion et al. (2018), remains un-explored. Antonsich (2010) asserted that even if the politics of belonging are ‘granted’, they do not necessarily generate the individual experience and sense of belonging. Also, Josie Gabi (2013) discussed the relationship between ‘participation’ and ‘belonging’ in early childhood education and questioned whether involvement or participation could be reckoned as an indication of belonging. Even if a child is included and recognised by other children as a member in the group and also appears to be an active participant, this does not guarantee that he or she feels that he or she belongs¹².

Drawing on Halse (2018), Antonsich (2010), and Sumsion et al. (2018), I

acknowledge the importance of applying both a relational approach, that is, how belonging

11 See article II, Boldermo (2019)

12 See article II, Boldermo (2019)

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operates and is being negotiated, practised, and produced between children within their peer groups, as well as considering how belonging is experienced – sensed and lived by the

individual child. The relational approach, such as the politics of belonging, has been described and examined by several researchers in the field of early childhood education lately (Juutinen, 2018; Stratigos, 2015a, 2015b; Stratigos, 2016; Stratigos et al., 2014; Sumsion et al., 2018;

Sumsion & Wong, 2011). I perceive Sumsion et al. (2018) suggestions of belonging as a practice as within such a relational approach to studying belonging.

In order to outline an individual approach to belonging that sheds light on how belonging is experienced by the individual child, I suggest that the relational, cultural, and legal factors of place-belongingness as described by Antonsich (2010) could be an entrance to explore children’s belonging as an individual experiential state (Sumsion et al., 2018). The relational factors of place-belongingness were described by Antonsich (2010) as long-lasting, significant, and positive relations that are part of a person’s everyday life through everyday encounters, yet different from the emotional relations to family members¹³. I perceive such relational factors, together with cultural factors such as codes, signs, and gestures that evoke senses of community, and legal factors in the safety and security of being ensured of ‘having a place’ (Antonsich, 2010; Nutbrown & Clough, 2009), as highly relevant when studying how belonging could be experienced and lived by the individual child.

Finally, to bring this section to a close before illustrating the conceptualisations of belonging that form basis for the later analysis (Tables I and II), I draw attention to the

concept of togetherness as researched by Koivula and Hännikäinen (2017)¹⁴ and identified by Sumsion et al. (2018) as an aspect of belonging as an experiential state and suggest that the displaying of togetherness among children in early childhood settings could be approached as an everyday, experiential state of belonging (Sumsion et al., 2018). In line with Juutinen (2018, p. 64), I have found that strictly differing between belonging as individually lived and experienced on the one hand, and relationally practised and negotiated on the other, is difficult when analysing children’s meaning making of belonging in kindergarten. The children’s lives in kindergarten are going on in a fleeting everyday rhythm, predictable and

13 I do not perceive children’s experience of place-belongingness or their belonging as an experiential state in early childhood settings in the context of children’s inborn biological needs for affiliation to his or her parents, as described by John Bowlby (Bowlby, 1997). Antonsich’s (2010) distinction, as highlighted here, supports my perception.

14 See article III, Boldermo (2020)

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yet full of surprises and unexpected events, by which the children are active and creative participants and contributors, and their everyday negotiations and practices of belonging are entangled and intertwined with their individual feelings and experiences of belonging and being included. The children’s ongoing drawing of boundaries to differentiate between ‘us’

and ‘them’, and thus safeguard their own membership, can create an individual feeling of security and being part for the child or children that are within the line of boundary, as it simultaneously works as an exclusionary practice affecting the child or children outside the line of boundary.

The following tables I and II, which illustrate how the concept of belonging is conceptualised in this study, must thus be understood as a theoretical exercise, that, when encountering the reality of everyday life in kindergarten, do not fully display the

entanglements and complexities of belonging. Nevertheless, these tables are my contribution to how one can consider children’s belonging in kindergarten both as an individually lived and experiential state, as well as a relationally negotiated practice.

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Table 1 Belonging in kindergarten as an individually lived and experiential state

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Table 2 Belonging in kindergarten as a relationally negotiated practice

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3. Scientific Positioning: Theoretical Perspective and