What can the temporal aspects of belonging tell us about the self?

"What can the temporal aspects of belonging tell us about the self?"
Vanessa May
The University of Manchester
A talk given to the Centre for Research in the Social Sciences at the University of Huddersfield
8 March 2016
The focus of this paper lies on understanding how a person’s sense of belonging is tethered to time, meaning how the past, present and future inform a person’s sense of belonging. It explores two aspects of belonging as a temporal experience, namely duration and temporal location, using 62 written accounts from the Mass Observation Project (www.massobs.org.uk/).
The paper makes two arguments: first, that the temporality of belonging speaks to a person’s moral character and aids in constructing a coherent self over time, and second, that there are also experiences of belonging that can best be described as timeless or taking place out of time, that defy understandings of linear temporality and a singular self. In working out what this seeming paradox signifies, the paper engages with theories on temporal narrative selves in an effort to contribute to our understanding of the importance of the temporality of belonging.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Further reproduction of individual quotes requires the approval of the Mass Observation Project.
Images:
Out of time by AagaardDS (aagaardds.deviantart.com)
Time Spiral by Slavoljub Pantelic (Image used under license from Shutterstock.com)