A Philosophy of Belonging

A Philosophy of Belonging PDF Author: James Greenaway
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268206007
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
James Greenaway offers a philosophical guide to understanding, affirming, and valuing the significance of belonging across personal, political, and historical dimensions of existence. A sense of belonging is one of the most meaningful experiences of anyone’s life. Inversely, the discovery that one does not belong can be one of the most upsetting experiences. In A Philosophy of Belonging, Greenaway treats the notion of belonging as an intrinsically philosophical one. After all, belonging raises intense questions of personal self-understanding, identity, mortality, and longing; it confronts interpersonal, sociopolitical, and historical problems; and it probes our relationship with both the knowable world and transcendent mystery. Experiences of alienation, exclusion, and despair become conspicuous only because we are already moved by a primordial desire to belong. Greenaway presents a hermeneutical framework that brings the intelligibility of belonging into focus and discusses the works of various representative thinkers in light of this hermeneutic. The study is divided into two main parts, “Presence” and “Communion.” In the first, Greenaway considers the abiding presence of the cosmos as the context of personhood and the world, followed by the presence of persons to themselves and others by way of consciousness and embodiment, culminating in a discussion of the unrestricted horizon of meaning that love makes present in persons. In the second part, belonging in community is explored as a crucial type of communion that is both politically and historically structured. Moreover, communion has direction and a quality of sacredness that offers itself for consideration. Greenaway concludes with a discussion of the consequences of refusing presence and communion, and what is involved in the repudiation of belonging.

A Philosophy of Belonging

A Philosophy of Belonging PDF Author: James Greenaway
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268206007
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Get Book Here

Book Description
James Greenaway offers a philosophical guide to understanding, affirming, and valuing the significance of belonging across personal, political, and historical dimensions of existence. A sense of belonging is one of the most meaningful experiences of anyone’s life. Inversely, the discovery that one does not belong can be one of the most upsetting experiences. In A Philosophy of Belonging, Greenaway treats the notion of belonging as an intrinsically philosophical one. After all, belonging raises intense questions of personal self-understanding, identity, mortality, and longing; it confronts interpersonal, sociopolitical, and historical problems; and it probes our relationship with both the knowable world and transcendent mystery. Experiences of alienation, exclusion, and despair become conspicuous only because we are already moved by a primordial desire to belong. Greenaway presents a hermeneutical framework that brings the intelligibility of belonging into focus and discusses the works of various representative thinkers in light of this hermeneutic. The study is divided into two main parts, “Presence” and “Communion.” In the first, Greenaway considers the abiding presence of the cosmos as the context of personhood and the world, followed by the presence of persons to themselves and others by way of consciousness and embodiment, culminating in a discussion of the unrestricted horizon of meaning that love makes present in persons. In the second part, belonging in community is explored as a crucial type of communion that is both politically and historically structured. Moreover, communion has direction and a quality of sacredness that offers itself for consideration. Greenaway concludes with a discussion of the consequences of refusing presence and communion, and what is involved in the repudiation of belonging.

You Always Belonged and You Always Will

You Always Belonged and You Always Will PDF Author: Martin Clay Fowler
Publisher: Zuberfowler Initiatives
ISBN: 9780615931326
Category : Belonging (Social psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
You belong. You always did, and you always will. "You belong" is my benediction to you, not some claim about you. Belonging is the first gift of the living to the living. You ask: Belong to whom? Belong with what? Belong here? Belong now? On what terms? At the same time, you feel rightly that the benediction is a real gift which you needed even if you never asked for it. Working out the terms of belonging is the most human work we do together. Belonging is a basic human need and at the heart of global issues in the 21st century: refugees, immigration, and humanity's relationship with nature. But philosophers mostly ignore belonging, and some find it elusive to define or to put into perspective. Why does it matter to belong? Who can be sure of belonging? You may feel that you belong nowhere. My two words (which are now yours) mean that your belonging was never "nowhere." Your belonging is not problematic and not probationary. It's neither inclusion nor attachment. It's no comfort zone, familiar setting, a piece of turf, or your peace of mind. It's your vulnerability to transformation. This vulnerable belonging is not precarious, but living as though you and others don't belong is extremely insecure. Transformation is more than change; not always momentous, discontinuous, or miraculous, irreversably living in a right direction without seeing our destination. "You Always Belonged and You Always Will - a Philosophy of Belonging" argues that we only tell life's first story: strivings to transform internal and external environments. Life then looks busy, busy, busy. Let's tell life's second story too. Life sustains itself, but it also enables life to belong. Belonging is no relationship between distinct lives nor interaction, connection among lives. I propose that each life belongs in every life, and every life belongs in each life. This inter-situated reality helps evolution, ecosystems, and communities to function. Life's borders like skin and turf, don't limit a life's scope and meaning. Lives have insides and outsides, but that's packaging not the gift. Sound strange? Is this stranger than believing you can belong only inside your skin or on some patch of ground? Is this stranger than picturing belonging as ever fainter concentric ripples extending from you? Relationships provide the adhesive between lives, but it's belonging which places lives smack within lives. We experience belonging not as inner glow nor by invitation, but by exercising capacities you probably associate only with physical fitness: power, speed, strength, flexibility, accuracy, agility, balance, coordination, stamina, and endurance. These capacities are more than muscular skills. They are how we engage the world to belong. We experience life's core values: courage, justice, truth, peace, and love as we exercise and combine these capacities. We mix striving and belonging in activity to get a kinesthetic feel for these values in our lives...if we haven't already given up on living with meaningful activity. Our society's numbing expanse of inactivity makes belonging and meaningful activity seem larger than life. But they are both exactly life-sized, and you're a perfect fit. Belonging is not probationary, problematic, scarce, nor restricted to the lucky and few. We say that "extremophiles" belong only in inhospitable circumstances. Inhospitable to whom? Flip this around and declare every life an extremophile! It would be stranger to find a life that belongs nowhere! Humans anchor their belonging in being unique, rational, in control, most favored by God, or having intrinsic value, but belonging is enough authority to live, whether you're Isaac Newton or a spotted newt. No one makes you belong. You can't make yourself belong (why did no one explain this when you were thirteen?) As striving makes your life possible, belonging helps to make your life matter. There's a reason that the lock seems to fit your key. Welcome home.

African Philosophy and Thought Systems

African Philosophy and Thought Systems PDF Author: Mawere, Munyaradzi
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
ISBN: 9956763012
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The once acrimonious debate on the existence of African philosophy has come of age, yet the need to cultivate a culture of belonging is more demanding now than ever before in many African societies. The gargantuan indelible energised chicanery waves of neo-colonialism and globalisation and their sweeping effect on Africa demand more concerted action and solutions than cul-de-sac discourses and magical realism. It is in view of this realisation that this book was born. This is a vital text for understanding contextual historical trends in the development of African philosophic ideas on the continent and how Africans could possibly navigate the turbulent catadromous waters, tangled webs and chasms of destruction, and chagrin of struggles that have engrossed Africa since the dawn of slavery and colonial projects on the continent. The book aims to generate more insights and influence national, continental, and global debates in the field of philosophy. It is accessible and handy to a wider range of readers, ranging from educators and students of African philosophy, anthropology, African studies, cultural studies, and all those concerned with the further development of African philosophy and thought systems on the African continent.

In Search of Belonging

In Search of Belonging PDF Author: Jillian M Baez
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252050460
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
In Search of Belonging explores the ways Latina/o audiences in general, and women in particular, make sense of and engage both mainstream and Spanish-language media. Jillian M. Báez’s eye-opening ethnographic analysis draws on the experiences of a diverse group of Latinas in Chicago. In-depth interviews reveal Latinas viewing media images through a lens of citizenship. These women search for nothing less than recognition—and belonging—through representations of Latinas in films, advertising, telenovelas, and TV shows like Ugly Betty and Modern Family. Báez's personal interactions and research merge to create a fascinating portrait, one that privileges the perspectives of the women themselves as they consume media in complex, unpredictable ways. Innovative and informed by a wealth of new evidence, In Search of Belonging answers important questions about the ways Latinas perform citizenship in today’s America.

Borders of Belonging

Borders of Belonging PDF Author: Heide Castañeda
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503607925
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Borders of Belonging investigates a pressing but previously unexplored aspect of immigration in America—the impact of immigration policies and practices not only on undocumented migrants, but also on their family members, some of whom possess a form of legal status. Heide Castañeda reveals the trauma, distress, and inequalities that occur daily, alongside the stratification of particular family members' access to resources like education, employment, and health care. She also paints a vivid picture of the resilience, resistance, creative responses, and solidarity between parents and children, siblings, and other kin. Castañeda's innovative ethnography combines fieldwork with individuals and family groups to paint a full picture of the experiences of mixed-status families as they navigate the emotional, social, political, and medical difficulties that inevitably arise when at least one family member lacks legal status. Exposing the extreme conditions in the heavily-regulated U.S./Mexico borderlands, this book presents a portentous vision of how the further encroachment of immigration enforcement would affect millions of mixed-status families throughout the country.

Matters of Belonging

Matters of Belonging PDF Author: Wayne Modest
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789088907784
Category : Belonging (Social psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This publication examines creative and collaborative practices within ethnographic and world cultures museums across Europe as part of their responses to ongoing public and scholarly critique.

The Philosophy of Poetry

The Philosophy of Poetry PDF Author: John Gibson
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199603677
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
In recent years philosophers have produced important books on nearly all the major arts: the novel and painting, music and theatre, dance and architecture, conceptual art and even gardening. Poetry is the sole exception. This is an astonishing omission, one this collection of original essays will correct. If contemporary philosophy still regards metaphors such as 'Juliet is the sun' as a serious problem, one has an acute sense of how prepared it is to make philosophical and aesthetic sense of poems such W. B. Yeats's 'The Second Coming', Sylvia Plath's 'Daddy', or Paul Celan's 'Todesfuge'. The Philosophy of Poetry brings together philosophers of art, language, and mind to expose and address the array of problems poetry raises for philosophy. In doing so it lays the foundation for a proper philosophy of poetry, setting out the various puzzles and paradoxes that future work in the field will have to address. Given its breadth of approach, the volume is relevant not only to aesthetics but to all areas of philosophy concerned with meaning, truth, and the communicative and expressive powers of language more generally. Poetry is the last unexplored frontier in contemporary analytic aesthetics, and this volume offers a powerful demonstration of how central poetry should be to philosophy.

Eternal Echoes

Eternal Echoes PDF Author: John O'Donohue
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061853275
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
There is a divine restlessness in the human heart, our eternal echo of longing that lives deep within us and never lets us settle for what we have or where we are.In this exquisitely crafted and inspirational book, John O'Donohue, author of the bestseller Anam Cara, explores the most basic of human desires - the desire to belong, a desire that constantly draws us toward new possibilities of self-discovery, friendship, and creativity.

Belonging

Belonging PDF Author: bell hooks
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135883971
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
What does it mean to call a place home? Who is allowed to become a member of a community? When can we say that we truly belong? These are some of the questions of place and belonging that renowned cultural critic bell hooks examines in her new book, Belonging: A Culture of Place. Traversing past and present, Belonging charts a cyclical journey in which hooks moves from place to place, from country to city and back again, only to end where she began--her old Kentucky home. hooks has written provocatively about race, gender, and class; and in this book she turns her attention to focus on issues of land and land ownership. Reflecting on the fact that 90% of all black people lived in the agrarian South before mass migration to northern cities in the early 1900s, she writes about black farmers, about black folks who have been committed both in the past and in the present to local food production, to being organic, and to finding solace in nature. Naturally, it would be impossible to contemplate these issues without thinking about the politics of race and class. Reflecting on the racism that continues to find expression in the world of real estate, she writes about segregation in housing and economic racialized zoning. In these critical essays, hooks finds surprising connections that link of the environment and sustainability to the politics of race and class that reach far beyond Kentucky. With characteristic insight and honesty, Belonging offers a remarkable vision of a world where all people--wherever they may call home--can live fully and well, where everyone can belong.

Belonging

Belonging PDF Author: Toko-pa Turner
Publisher: Her Own Room Press
ISBN:
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
2018 Readers' Favorite Gold Winner 2019 IAN Book of the Year Award 2017 Nautilus Award Gold Winner Feel like you don’t belong? You’re not alone.The world has never been more connected, yet people are lonelier than ever. Whether we feel unworthy, alienated, or anxious about our place in the world — the absence of belonging is the great silent wound of our times. Most people think of belonging as a mythical place, and they spend a lifetime searching for it in vain. But what if belonging isn’t a place at all? What if it’s a skill that has been lost or forgotten? With her signature depth and eloquence, Toko-pa maps a path to Belonging from the inside out. Drawing on myth, stories and dreams, she takes us into the origins of our estrangement, reframing exile as a necessary initiation into authenticity. Then she shares the competencies of belonging: a set of ancestral practices to heal our wounds and restore true belonging to our lives and to the world.