Exploring belonging at Green Templeton
Sam McQuillen (Doctor of Philosophy in International Development, 2019) reflects on a reading group convened by Visiting Research Fellow Kim Samuel under the auspices of the Sheila Kitzinger Programme.
What does it mean to belong?
Kim Samuel, an activist, educator, and visiting research fellow at Green Templeton , deeply reflects on this question and many others in her recent title, On Belonging. Drawing inspiration from a wide range of knowledge systems and academic disciplines, Kim not only outlines a framework for studying the concept of belonging, but she also recounts tacit examples of organisations promoting belonging, warns how belonging can be misappropriated for nefarious purposes, and even proposes that belonging could be understood as a right.
Through the Sheila Kitzinger Programme, the Green Templeton community had an opportunity to learn from – and even co-create with – Kim during a four-week reading group of On Belonging followed by a capstone public lecture. This discussion series was part of a larger itinerary of events, including a launch event at the London Library and a ‘Big Lunch’ at the Eden Project, meant to promote academic and public discourse surrounding the idea of belonging. Throughout the four two-hour sessions, Kim engaged with experts across Oxford’s academic, non-profit, and faith communities to discuss the interlinkages between their work and the concept of belonging. The series attracted between 15 and 20 participants at each session to join the conversation and provide insight from their own disciplines – from medicine to social policy to development studies – to the discussion.
In the first week, Dr Elleke Boehmer (novelist and Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford) joined the session to introduce the idea of belonging and reflect on the intersection of storytelling, identity, and representation. After laying out Samuel’s ‘4-Ps’ approach to studying belonging, the group discussed how narratives are formed and reformed to either promote or deny belonging: ‘Stories are not always benign,’ reflected Elleke in reference to the social narratives that brought about Brexit. Yet, stories also represent an opportunity to listen to others and promote understanding, as Kim noted that ‘on the other side of stores, someone has to listen.’ The first session closed by the group ruminating on how narratives influence social systems which, in turn, influence to what extent certain groups are made to feel like they do or do not belong.
Tim Stead (Oxford-based writer and mindfulness teacher) took the role of discussant for the second session which focused on internal versus external notions of belonging. Together, Kim and Tim challenged the notion that ‘internal’ – feelings of loneliness or isolation – and ‘external’ – one’s actual number of friends or meaningful relationships – components of belonging can be separated. Tim instead urged the group to adopt a ‘non-dualistic’ approach to the world that appreciates the fuzziness of the human experience, while Kim recognised that belonging is an imperfect, ongoing quest that must exist on multiple levels. The group tested the reach of this integrated approach by reflecting on how globalisation has simultaneously increased global connectivity and eroded feelings of community, ultimately concluding that globalization must be pursued in a way that deliberately promotes inclusion. ‘What do we [the global community] value?’ provocatively asked Kim.
The third session welcomed Dr Masooda Bano (Professor of Development Studies at the University of Oxford) to discuss how belonging can be used for exclusionary ends. Masooda’s research reveals that many variables, from identity to poverty, can lead to religious radicalism, although each one has strong interlinkages with exclusion. Nonetheless, Masooda and Kim clarified that exclusion will not always lead to radicalism, and indeed it can result in an outburst of artistic creativity, communal support, or political action; however, this should not be used as an excuse to tolerate exclusion, and Kim and Masooda agreed that further research must be done on this important topic. In the second half of the session, the group reflected on how everyday processes can result in isolation and exclusion, particularly in reference to Oxford. Here, the group spoke about ‘othering’ across the University on the basis of family background, prep-school affiliation, and personal identity, concluding that much must be done in our own community to address mental health challenges amongst students.
In the final session, Aisling Passmore (University of Oxford graduate and Programme Manager at the local non-profit KEEN Oxford) joined the conversation to speak about systems of belonging. As an organization that seeks to incorporate individuals with disabilities into the greater Oxford community, KEEN Oxford represents a tangible model about how to systematically build belonging and fight social stigma, and Aisling reflected on how her work requires an immense amount of creativity, resilience, and careful data collection. Kim related KEEN Oxford’s challenges to those of many organizations with which she has worked in the past, such as the Friendship Bench and the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, and challenged the group to consider which systems can be redeemed and which ones cannot. From this exchange, the group debated about the nature of systematic change and reflected on how societal discourse could change to better promote belonging
Following this final session, the group reconvened for the final public lecture delivered by Kim and subsequent discussion moderated by Green Templeton Senior Research Fellow Catherine Pope. Inspired by the work of Sheila Kitzinger, Kim spoke to the need for reciprocal care in public health, advocating for a community-based approach to healthcare delivery that is also humane to caregivers. Catherine brought insights from her own career as a medical professional and reiterated the need to rethink how medical care is delivered in the United Kingdom. During the Q&A session, members of the Green Templeton community—including doctors, nurses, and midwives who have personal experience with the topics discussed—drew attention to the need for structural change to realize Kim and Sheila Kitzinger’s common vision of reciprocal caregiving, reaffirming many of the points discovered in the reading group.
Throughout these sessions, we discovered much about how to think about and research belonging as an analytical concept. Perhaps more than anything, however, the discussions challenged us all to imagine how to foster belonging in our own academic, professional, and personal communities. Our work, it seems, has just begun.
As the end of the academic year 2022-23 approached, we took the opportunity to sit down and talk to Kim about her experiences at college, career to date and plans for the future. Read interview with Visiting Research Fellow Kim Samuel
