ABSTRACT
This chapter provides how does an understanding of belonging in relation to the sociology of the everyday and the extraordinary provide insight to the experience of meaningful transnational settlement. The notions of the everyday and extraordinary arise from Bourdieu's (1988) critique that the examination of difference has a tendency to present sensationalist accounts of people's experiences or practices that reify particular understandings and discourses. The chapter elevates the status of the everyday alongside, rather than subsuming, the extraordinary. It examines an analysis of the intersectionality of people's social locations, identities and the domains of power that define the ways in which belonging are supported, created and constrained. The focus on power relations is important and introduces the political projects that inform belonging through both recognition and misrecognition. The interplay between belonging and its associated politics thereby provides the basis to consider the ways in which everyday and extraordinary representations influence the lived experiences of refugee settlement.
