ABSTRACT
Fields of belonging are, as Olwig (2002: 124) suggests, cultural constructs, imagined and sustained by individuals and collectives in numerous ways. For migrants, these fields may capture the local through to transnational connections, evoking and mobilising loyalty to different communities simultaneously (Lovell 1998: 5). Thus, despite possible contemplations of returning ‘home’, and actively fostering transnational connections and diasporic imaginings (which might be suggestive of experiences of ‘displacement’ and ‘dislocation’), migrants continue to become involved in and interact with various social institutions, networks and discourses of the society in which they reside. It is through these processes of engaging in various realms of society that they establish fields of belonging within their local contexts and thus become emplaced. The local, however, is not a bounded cultural site, but rather reveals itself as a juncture of intersecting ideas, values and loyalties (Gupta and Ferguson 1997, Olwig and Hastrup 1997). In this way, belonging in and to the local is a process of dialectical engagement with multiple and sometimes contradictory discourses and practices of inclusion. The determinants of belonging can be many and varied. Debates over the parameters of national belonging and citizenship can be instrumental in affecting modalities of belonging in local spaces. The prominence of transnational studies in recent years has brought into question the salience of the nation-state in mobilising belonging. While connections that traverse the boundaries of nation-states have highlighted the selective permeability of state borders, I agree with Ong (1999: 15) who argues for the need to recognise the continuing presence of the nation-state as a key figure in debates over belonging, particularly as it continues to ‘define, discipline, control, and regulate all kinds of populations’. The nation-state consequently imparts and informs the development of various fields of belonging. State involvement in the maintenance of, not only the material but also symbolic, boundaries of citizenship is a case in point.
