Practices of Belonging

Recording of presentation given at Vital Signs 2 Conference, 7-9 September 2010, University of Manchester

How does the process of belonging to a place reveal itself? Is it possible to explicate ‘belonging’ as distinct from other feelings? Looking at the world through the intersubjective relationships which make up concrete life histories, I am exploring how families who have remained in one place for several generations embody ‘localness’, a shared ‘stock of knowledge’ passed on from one generation to the next which can be accessed through familial biographical stories along with more mundane accounts of day-to-day life.

I am specifically researching the practices inherent in being ‘a Wiganer’ through biographical interviews with multiple generations of each family, resident over several generations in the area of Wigan, in the north west of England, and photo diaries created by respondents over the course of a week to capture their everyday life.

The different life-stories over the generations highlight the family and community practices which constitute ‘localness’. Diaries record seemingly unimportant details which serve to draw out the tacit knowledge that is available to members of the community; including photos with the diaries allows a unique insight into how they view their life-world. Each picture of a familiar place has multiple stories attached to it: ‘Leigh. Looks funny when you take its photograph. This big red building used to be the Co-op and both my parents worked for the Co-op, not this one but you know the whole Co-op movement and that’s how they met.’. Each picture is a palimpsest, tangible buildings hiding intangible memories.