Belonging

Social Justice Usage

Source: Agarwal, Pragya. “Belonging In The Workplace: A New Approach to Diversity And Inclusivity.” Forbes, August 26, 2019.

As we make the case for diversity and inclusion in the workplace, it is important to consider that people experience the same context and situation in different ways depending on their own background, culture, and so on. However, one thing remains consistent in positive workplace culture, and that is the sense of belonging. Baumeister and Leary define belonging as “the feeling of security and support when there is a sense of acceptance, inclusion, and identity for a member of a certain group or place, and as the basic fundamental drive to form and maintain lasting, positive, and significant relationships with others.” People are motivated by an inherent desire to form inter-personal links and connections. But many diversity initiatives do not have the necessary impact. … It is crucial to assert that when I talk about a sense of belonging, I am not talking about a culture of “best fit.” In fact, completely the opposite. Here, the intention is not to focus on trying to hire people who will fit into workplace culture, or support the employee in fitting into existing workplace culture at the cost of their own identity. This will have a completely opposite effect. The idea is not to ignore differences but to normalize how we discuss and talk about them. The idea is that everyone is different, and they are equal. My research shows that people who feel they belong perform better, become more willing to challenge themselves, and are more resilient.

New Discourses Commentary

“Belonging” is one of the newer buzzwords in the application of the Theory of Critical Social Justice, alongside “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” (sometimes amongst others like “justice” and “accountability”). It is largely an extension of the idea of inclusion to make it more active in the sense that, where inclusion implies not being excluded or being made to feel welcome (by not being made to feel unwelcome), belonging implies being made to feel like you belong through active measures like valuing your input and opinion, expressly welcoming you to meetings, and taking other active steps to make sure you feel “at home” in the situation, space, or environment. In that sense, belonging is importing the attitude of positive affirmation (see also, celebration and body positivity) into how protected classes of people (e.g., BIPOC or transgender) are treated in some environment.

In much of the literature, “belonging” is connected to ideas such as psychological safety and trust. People are said to feel like they belong when those are present, which under a corporate doctrine of belonging will mean that it will be the employer and other coworkers’ jobs to make sure that the most sensitive and “vulnerable” in the workplace always feel this way. Given that the critical mindset includes hypersensitivity to slights (e.g., microaggressions), just as with inclusion, it might be very difficult to create spaces that foster belonging (on top of the already onerous diversity and inclusion). Belonging and inclusion are said to be that which makes diversity work. In practice, this will mean taking any and all necessary steps to ensure that the people who demand the space accord with “belonging” are never made to feel anything other than these. Indeed, as noted, belonging isn’t about finding the “best fit” for a job; it’s about the employer ensuring that everyone there feels like they are the best fit by changing the culture, policy, and environment to suit those who demand a belonging space (among those whose opinions count, that is).

A common trope regarding diversity, inclusion, and belonging is to say that diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance, and belonging is knowing all the songs because they’re part of “your jam.” Another version of this trope is “diversity is having a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice, and belonging is having that voice be heard.” In that sense, “belonging” refers to a space catering to the person or people who are mandated to be made to feel like they belong there. Thus, while inclusion is a push to make sure that someone never faces attitudes or power dynamics that might lead them to feel awkward and excluded, belonging takes this further and demands that those people are intentionally made to feel welcome and even special (lest otherwise they feel marginalized, silenced, or harmed). Belonging is said to form a sense of community in a workplace.

The phrase “bringing your whole self to work” is granted its intended meaning under the doctrine of “belonging.” The “whole self” being referred to here essentially refers to two facets of “self” that are usually excluded in professional settings: personal issues and activism. Personal issues, as used here, should be interpreted broadly to include emotional issues, personal drama, modes of dress and presentation that may fall well outside the dress code (explicit or implied), hobbies, and other behaviors that are more traditionally expected to be left at home. A person denied the ability to drag those aspects of their “whole selves” to work may not feel like they belong, however. For instance, being asked to dress professionally might lead someone who tends not to dress that way like they don’t “belong” in the space, leading them to cast an explicit or implied dress code as oppressive (see also, fatshion). Because in Wokeness “the personal is political,” one’s “whole self” will also include political activism (though certainly conservative activism wouldn’t be welcome), which will then have to not just be tolerated but possibly positively affirmed by the workplace and the people in it (especially management).

In practice, where inclusion becomes the justification for speech codes, censorship, “desegregation” (which is to say, segregation), and purges, belonging not only strengthens these demands but raises the bar for them not just to policing speech, action, and behaivor but to constantly taking active steps to make activists and their charges feel special and important. This puts the ball in the court of the “host” not only never to make mistakes but also to never make mistakes while taking continual proactive steps. Psychologically, this will generate a lot of commitment to the people who are being catered to by those who embrace the ideology because it cannot be rationalized otherwise (see the “Benjamin Franklin Effect”), though it will wear down and generate resentment in people who aren’t. Because “bringing your whole self to work” means both bringing unprofessional behaviors and (Woke) political activism to work, belonging is also a demand that employers respect and validate those and any personal issues that accompany them without seeing it as the obvious breach of professionalism that they actually are.

See also, diversity and inclusion

Related Terms

Accountability; BIPOC; Body positivity; Celebration; Community; Conservative; Critical; Desegregation; Diversity; Equity; Exclusion; Fatshion; Harm; Ideology; Inclusion; Justice; Marginalization; Microaggression; Oppression; Personal is political, the; Positive affirmation; Power (systemic); Silence; Social Justice; Space; Theory; Transgender; Woke/Wokeness

Revision date: 6/7/21

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James Lindsay