Life, diversity and belonging - Meaning of daily life and life course for experiences of everyday encounters with difference in the Indische Buurt, Amsterdam

Abstract

People's senses of belongingness during everyday encounters with difference are revealing of how people live with and relate to each other in diversified society. However, little is known about how people's life courses and daily activities affect their belongingness during encounters. Based on research in a diversified neighbourhood in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, this paper shows that people's life courses and daily mobility interrelate to bring about senses of belongingness. Life courses and daily activities converge during encounters to influence a relational differentiation of Self and others that leads to varying senses of belongingness, including exclusion. This situational process represents the plurality and dynamism of, and structuration, in diversified society. Because of societal plurality and dynamism, a research and policy focus on cohesion rather than belongingness might be undue.