Place, Identity and Belonging
What do you say when someone asks you, "Where are you from?" What place, or places, do you identify as being "home"? Perhaps your answer varies with who is asking the question, where you are when asked, and the context of the question.
Pause and Reflect: Describe how you answer "Where are you from?" in different settings of being introduced to someone (to someone in your own town, contrasted to someone met on a trip).
This idea of a "home" place is significant. Of course, our very existence requires that we occupy space, but the ties to places may become more than simply physical. We develop emotional ties, a sense of belonging, to these places. They become part of our identity. These may be places in which we have family connections, which may be distant from the space in which one is living. Outward from the family, we may cherish identity with a neighbourhood, region, or perhaps a group of people with whom we share similar cultural characteristics as well as frequently our place of residence. Beyond self and family, a collective identity may develop with others with whom we share our physical spaces. Sociologist Milton Gordon (1964) noted that identifying with a group provides individuals with a needed "sense of peoplehood" and "oneness."
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Date last modified: October 8, 2009.
NSF Project (AAG,Texas State, Northern Colorado)