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Putting Belonging into Place: Place Experience and Sense of Belonging among E cuadorian Migrants in an I talian A lpine Region
Author(s) -
RAFFAETÀ ROBERTA,
DUFF CAMERON
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
city and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1548-744X
pISSN - 0893-0465
DOI - 10.1111/ciso.12025
Subject(s) - materiality (auditing) , feeling , sense of place , place attachment , ethnography , sense of community , meaning (existential) , sociology , mythology , space (punctuation) , place making , assemblage (archaeology) , social psychology , aesthetics , psychology , geography , history , anthropology , social science , computer science , art , archaeology , engineering , architectural engineering , classics , psychotherapist , operating system
This paper explores the meaning and mechanics of belonging with a particular focus on the role of place and place‐making. It explores the ways people come to achieve a sense of belonging with reference to recent theoretical treatments of place, territory, and mobility. We ground our discussion in analysis of an ethnographic case of E cuadorian families who have migrated to T rentino in northern I taly. Most families miss the social relationships and places they left behind, but have decided to stay permanently in Italy, giving up the “myth of return” ( A nwar 1979). T rentino offers more opportunities in term of employment, education, and access to services than Ecuador. Yet the decision to stay in T rentino is based on more than a simple assessment of economic advantage. Participants spoke of a slowly unfolding sense of belonging to T rentino, with strong affective dimensions born of a specific attachment to the very materiality of place in T rentino. This attachment may be regarded as an assemblage of social, material and affective resonances, experiences and resources, revealing something of the place and feeling of belonging. Hence, the E cuadorian sense of belonging does not rely on an abstract conception of cultural affiliation, nor is it a purely psychological response. Rather, belonging accrues in particular practices and material attachments. We unpack these practices by documenting the work participants put into inhabiting an unfamiliar place as “their” place, while at the same time questioning the ontological status of space.