Cultivating a Sense of Belonging – A Civic Conversation

Cultivating a Sense of Belonging – A Civic Conversation

Linen Hall Library, Belfast –  16 September 2014, 1pm to 4.30pm

This conversational seminar was co-sponsored by the Belfast Migrant Centre and the RSA Ireland region, co-hosted by Kendall Bousquet, from the Belonging Project , and Denis Stewart, from the International Futures Forum.

Background

Northern Irish people have a reputation amongst visitors for being friendly and welcoming.  Against this background, there are questions being asked in our increasingly diverse NI society.  For example: How welcome to those of our fellow citizens who have moved to live and work in Northern Ireland feel? How are migrants regarded by their ‘more indigenous’ neighbours? How far is it true that people who are settling in NI, having migrated here for various reasons, feel a sense of belonging? What about the Northern Irish people from ‘ethnic minority’ backgrounds, who have been born and raised in this place? And what roles can political and other civic leaders play in all of this?

People had been invited to participate in a conversation about questions like these, and others they wished to pose on the afternoon of 16th September, in the Linen Hall Libary.  An important backdrop to the conversation was an exhibition of Belonging project photographs, with audio clips, on who in the Library during September.

Introductory comments

Kendall gave a brief account of the origins and progress of the Belonging project. A video about the project would be on view during a break for tea/coffee.

Denis spoke briefly about the nature of a conversational seminar, as one form of ‘civic conversation’.  Most of our time would be given to talking, listening and learning around the tables.  He referred to the Consultation Paper on a Racial Equality Strategy for Northern Ireland, recently issued by OFMDFM[1], and quoted from the paper (p.6):

The provisional title for our Strategy is “A Sense of Belonging”.  We want everyone – including people from minority ethnic backgrounds – to have a sense of belonging. And we want that ‘sense of belonging’ to be acknowledged and valued by people from all backgrounds.

 Starting the conversation

People were invited to begin by sharing with each other at their tables what ‘sense of belonging’ means to them.  The conversation ranged across various meanings of ‘belonging’ (to a place, a group, a community, a locality, a country, ..).  Points noted during a plenary session included:

• shared housing\integrated schools à can ‘shared space’ work in Belfast?
• creating safe spaces
• flag protests etc. à not conducive to ‘Belonging’?
• It’s not just about being accepted/feeling included, but also being empowered
• What counts as culture?
• Need for an inclusive culture in NI
• Celebrating differences vs. fighting in defence of particular sub-cultures
• Self-critique of won culture needed
• Grassroots à top-down or top-up?
• Diversity of political representatives à capacity building and funding
• Respect
• Universality
• Learning about society and giving back
• Integration vs. assimilation
• Accountability of political leaders – speaking and acting responsibly

Brief talks by three participants

Aruna Djalo, (from Guinea Bissau & Portugal), Qiaoyi Li (from China) and Maciek Bator (from Poland), had been invited to take a few minutes to share some of their stories, reflections and feelings of coming to live and work in Northern Ireland.  Aruna and Qiaoyi each feature in the Belonging (visual/verbal) portraits: http://www.thebelongingproject.org/aruna-guinea-bissau ; http://www.thebelongingproject.org/qiaoyi-china ]. Maciek is part of the recently-formed CRAIC NI.

Comments made by our three thought-provoking speakers included: 

• It’s important to make an effort to integrate
• Once I did, but now I don’t feel welcome; I’m disappointed
• My child was born here ..
• There is institutional racism
• Migrants can help make NI a better place
• I was warned off coming to NI, but thankfully, I didn’t listen!
• It’s given me lots of opportunities
• I’m learning a lot, including picking up colloquialisms
• I have a sense of accomplishment
• Giving back, and becoming less selfish is important
• Integration is a dual process: I’m learning, and people wanting to get to know me
• Since coming here in 2004, why did I decide to stay? I don’t’ know!
• I’ve met many decent, open and friendly people
• At the start, NI people ask lots of questions!
• The local language/accents are difficult!
• NI seems to be a sort of ‘single-identity society’
• The political leadership is mostly poor, not helping people to find common ground
• I hope incomers like me can be bridges between people here
• We are here, we are part of the local society, including the politics

Exploring how a sense of belonging can be cultivated

Using a ‘world café’ approach, participants explored four possible ways in which a sense of belonging can/could be fostered, approaches that had been mentioned and/or were implied during the earlier part of the conversation,.  These were:

Cultivating a sense of belonging by: 

1. co-creating personal, physical and civic space
2. widening and enabling political participation and encouraging ethical leadership
3. bridging divides/differences, recognising commonalities, and fostering critical appreciation of differences
4. Challenging and changing language and categories

The points noted at each table are listed below.

A. Co-creating personal, physical and civic space

• Using civic space in multi-cultured cities (outdoor gatherings hosted by particular communities; adopting spaces for cultural event)
• Ensuring safety in civic spaces {Who decides? Who takes the lead? Dealing with sectarianism)
• Bridging differences through sport and the arts
• How to promote cultural events (language/local culture)
• Engaging with local communities
• Initial welcome to specific places (by community leaders; encouraging networking, ..)
• Building trust between ‘migrants’ and ‘local people’ (sensitivities over language
• We migrants have a responsibility to learn and to integrate
• Co-creating civic spaces through doing the arts
• Engaging with people in local communities, having (civic) conversation
• Need for more meeting spaces in some neighbourhoods
• Have ‘friendship clubs’, where people talk together and incomers don’t feel like strangers
• Encourage ‘local people’ to acknowledge people of different appearance/culture/accent, seeing others as persons, not invisible
• There is wonderful energy that comes from people gathering, listening, sharing
• Foster a sense of creative citizenship
• Let’s help the story outline on this page to be written

 B.  Widening and enabling political participation, and encouraging ethical leadership

• Have meaningful consultation where people’s voices and expressed and heard
• Build leadership capacity among ethnic minorities  – through: variety of opportunities for language learning; educational seminars at the NI Assembly; internships and special adviser opportunities for people from minority groups; learning for leadership programmes; …
• Provide opportunities for people to learn about: political processes in NI; voting rights of EU citizens; role of trade unions; roles of pressure groups
• Education for citizenship in schools (cf. the nature and role of religious studies/RE in schools)
• Have a Minister for Cultural Education
• Encouraging citizens from all backgrounds to engage civically/volunteer

C.  Bridging divides/differences, recognising commonalities, and fostering critical appreciation of differences

• Organising events that focus common ground e.g. sport, family, hobbies, festival. Organic, there to enjoy themselves
• Let people’s passion be the driving force
• Start with young people
• Enable community leaders to develop knowledge and skills to engage
• Have ambassadors for minority ethnic people\group
• To engage, you have to ask questions – this can be a barrier for migrants
• Telling stories
• To build bridges you have to communicate
• It takes courage to become part of society
• Respect can come from taking steps e.g. learning a language, both migrants and people in NI
• Asking questions about people’s culture is a good thing, and can encourage introspection about your own culture
• Clear about what values are should be cultivated
• Look at people’s culture in context
• Need to be self-critical
• Identity and what’s important to people is very individual
• NI situation is not unique
• Taking responsibility for negative aspects
• Recognise people have multiple identities
• People have to be able to express their culture, language
• Increase knowledge, learning, empathy, education, TV, billboards, …

D.  Challenging and changing, language and categories

• Alternatives to use of terms like ‘local’ and ‘migrant’?
• Don’t like ‘BME: sounds derogatory, who decides this
• Language has changes to become less hostile but still categories
• Different countries/cultures have different category or acceptable language
• ‘Language’ and ‘categories’ should be defined by the communities they represent
• ‘Migrant worker’ shouldn’t be a permanent category but it doesn’t seem to change even after living here for many years
• How do you become part of a community if they constantly see you as someone who may leave at any time
• Incomer, newcomer, new citizen – what is a better and more welcoming? Or change migrant to have a more positive connotation?
• Take away judgement based on ‘migration’ experience
• How you present yourself also matters
• Capitalise on Common links – make it about the human element
• Some cultures\common identities group together which can create isolation
• What is integration? Is this a loss of identity? How does this differ from assimilation?
• Integration is more about how the cultures come together and interact
• Issues of language being used appropriately – ‘political direct’ language – use of the ‘right’ words\terminology still causing tensions – how does this get resolved?
• Who should define\decide the categories\labels?
• How can there be progress when tensions are caused by rules and regulations around language?
• Categories not being changed will always have an impact whether positive or negative.

Endpiece

Denis drew the conversation to an end with some quotes from ‘In the name of Identity’, by Amin Maalouf, a Lebanese-born, French writer.[2]

From the Introduction:

How many times, since I left Lebanon in 1976 to live in France, have people asked me …whether I felt “more French” or “more Lebanese”?  And I always give the same answer: “Both!”  I say that not in the interests of fairness or balance, but because any other answer would be a lie.  What makes me myself .. is the very fact that I am poised between two countries, two or three languages and several cultural traditions.

Later in the book, Maalouf, describes ‘two extreme ideas’ that migrants can have of the ‘host country’ – either as:

a blank sheet of paper on which everyone can write whatever he pleases ..without making any changes in his habits or behaviour; or seeing the host country as a page already written and printed, a land where the laws, values, beliefs and other ..cultural characteristics have been fixed once and for all, and all that immigrants can do is conform to them.

Both notions strike me as equally unrealistic, sterile and harmful. …the self-evident common ground [is] that a host country is neither a tabula rasa, nor a fait accompli, but a page in the process of  being written.

Denis Stewart, 9/10/14

[1] OFMDFM – The Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland

[2] Published 1996/2012; English translation by Barbara Bray, 2000/2012