ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book provides a powerful and ubiquitous narrative of student belonging in higher education (HE); of belonging as tied to specific activities and forms of engagement on and around campus. It is a narrative which has become tightly entangled in prevailing agendas of student retention, student engagement and the student experience within the UK HE sector. The book maps a theoretical trajectory which began with a Bourdieusian analysis of power and social inequalities and led to a borderland analysis, generating new theoretical territory among Pierre Bourdieu, A. Brah and D. Massey. It argues that use their ideas of space and power and relationships between them to (re) theorise student belonging as relational, contested, negotiated and in process. The book attempts to rethink belonging between binaries of traditional/non-traditional, belonging/not-belonging.
