Identity and Belonging

This chapter explores identity and belonging as central tenets to young people's subjective wellbeing. The two were found to be closely intertwined, intrinsically linked with a sense of being part of the social, religious, economic, and political spheres of the communities in which they lived. While seeking to belong in their new homes, young people from all countries simultaneously maintained a sense of duty to 'give back' to their home countries. For some this was in real time through remittances or other forms of transnational support, while others imagined futures in which they would be in a position to help rebuild communities as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lawyers, or business investors. The chapter then explores how cultivating and maintaining a sense of identity was often experienced as a temporal process of becoming different to how one was before, and the subsequent impact this has on their ideas of belonging. As in previous chapters, it juxtaposes young people's subjective ideas with those contained within political and policy discourses about where young people should belong.