This research aims to understand the process of belonging by analysing where and how Syrian refugees experience belonging in the Netherlands. Against the background of national integration debates...Show moreThis research aims to understand the process of belonging by analysing where and how Syrian refugees experience belonging in the Netherlands. Against the background of national integration debates that have defined belonging and integration in the Netherlands in synonymity with being able to culturally assimilate, it is argued that that seeing belonging in terms of cultural assimilation has led to heavy focus on integration criteria like language acquisition, labour market entry, and education as conditions for being able to feel “at home”. As the data collected from semi-structured interviews show and by using Antonsich’ conceptualisation of place-belongingness as a foundation from which the process of belonging is explored, it is emphasised that feeling “at home” is a multidimensional process that stretches between and beyond different locations, with refugees developing different methods to adapt to new environments, circumstances, and communities in order to be able to feel “at home”. Apart from the physical home functioning as a safe and private environment where one can be ‘at ease’ in, the data gathered from the interviews show that experiencing feeling “at home” within the physical home is under constant negotiating with the neighbourhood environment as social connections and encounters in the direct neighbourhood affect feeling “at home” in the physical home itself, showing that the physical home is not merely an impermeable private stronghold but rather a starting point from which other places in the wider neighbourhood environment are explored. In addition to the analysis of this feeling “at home” in the physical home, concrete public places are explored for their unique qualities and provide a person with possibilities to attach to new places when such qualities are recognised. Specifically, places of restoration and places of sociality are claimed to enable belonging by their capabilities to increase self-awareness through active participation. Exploring public spaces like buurthuizen and nursing homes enabled the respondents to be a caregiver instead of a care-receiver, adding an existential dimension to their perception on how belonging is experienced and meaningful place-attachment is effectuated on a local scale.Show less
