Insiders and Outsiders

Have you ever felt that you were an outsider?  Felt like you didn’t belong, weren’t welcomed, weren’t sure what to do?  

Perhaps you’ve felt it occasionally when you’ve moved outside your usual places of belonging.  Perhaps you feel it daily in your work or everyday life. 

We know from a psychological perspective that we are driven to find belonging.  We want the comfort of feeling at ease; that we know what to do, what to expect. We want the group of people around us, to accept us as one of them and to support us.   

“The need to belong is a powerful, fundamental and extremely pervasive motivation” … without belonging levels of mental and physical ill health increase.

Baumeister and Leary 1995

At a very basic level our sense of belonging is often tied to people who are like us.  The people who speak our language, share our ethnic background, or our religion.

And yet, in a globalized world with people studying, working and living in countries and cultures different to their passport countries, that picture of belonging is changing. 

If our sense of belonging is dependent on being the same gender or race or religion, or class or educational background as the other people in the room, or on the bus or in the neighbourhood, that feeling of belonging will be felt less and less.   

As we look around our cities, our workplaces or our classrooms the picture we see in many countries of the world is a diverse picture.  We may not immediately feel a sense of belonging to those around us.

232 million people around the world are living outside their country of origin.

Immigrant or expat, international student or seasonal migrant worker, tax exile or asylum seeker, the reasons for leaving ‘home’ are many.  Work opportunities, chasing love, adventure, freedom, or just survival: people are moving.

As the recent Brexit result, the US electoral campaign and voting in the Australian federal election show, some people in the community are feeling that lack of belonging and voting against it.

The discomfort of not belonging can be powerful.  It can lead to fear and suspicion of those who are different. It can drive people to attack the lives and lifestyles of others.   It can drive people to isolate themselves only building relationships with those who are like them. But it doesn’t have to.

Those of us who know that discomfort, having experienced being on the outside, realise that it might take more time or effort to build relationships with ‘the other’ but those relationships can be the most rewarding relationships. 

Those of us working in workplaces or communities that are diverse can help.  We can provide opportunities to build understanding.

We can provide workplace training to increase cultural intelligence - the capability that enables success in diverse situations.

We can accept that the discomfort some people feel is intense and will not be swept away with easy words or with harsh criticism.

We can acknowledge the issues of historical injustice and economic loss that often push people against those who are different and address the disparities of opportunity that are growing in our communities.

We can reach out to those who are different to us to build relationships. 

We can provide opportunities to share a different belonging via the workplace, the community or interests. Shared experiences of parenting, of challenges faced, or of working toward a common goal can bring us together. Sport, music, arts, nature can all provide a new sense of belonging.

We have a lot of work ahead of us but it is vital work, essential to our future. I’m honoured to be working in this area.

P.S.  I posted this before the most recent expression of fear and not belonging by a commentator in the Australian media and the fury that erupted on both sides of the discussion as people leapt to their positions.  In response I highlighted the section above and I agree with Waleed Ally who describes our need to be constructive rather than destructive.