Reconstructing Belonging and Agency

One overall topic in the research on young people leaving care is the question how they manage to get along in heterogeneous social situations and in regards to sometimes paradoxical and affording environments. An idea of creating belongings is in this context seldom referred to. According to the concept of relational agency put forward by Emirbayer and Mische (1998) human agency is a “temporally embedded process of social engagement, informed by the past, (in its habitual aspect), but also oriented towards the future (as a capacity to imagine alternative possibilities) and towards the present (as a capacity to contextualize past habits and future projects with the contingencies of the moment) (Emirbayer and Mische 1998: 963)”.

Aspects of belonging according to Yuval-Davis (2006) are social locations, identifications and emotional attachments (identity), ethical and political values (normative values) (Yuval-Davies, 2006, 2010). This means that belongings can be characterized by specific temporalities and geographies. The aim is to use the insights gained by the theoretical foundations of relational agency to inform and differentiate concepts of belongings.

The sample the presentation refers to includes eight qualitative retrospective case studies on care leavers from former foster care and eight from former residential care settings (counting the last placement). It is part of a greater ongoing research on care leavers (Trans Care) at the University of Luxembourg

Main research questions are

• How can concepts of belongings be related to conceptualizations of agency?
• How do young people in processes of transitioning enact belongings?