Building a Home

Abstract

We invent ourselves as unities in this world of images generated by ourselves.

(F. Nietzsche)

The main goal of this chapter is to explore lived expressive forms of constructive identity/ies, among young adults of immigrant descent/origin in seven European countries. The aim is to understand some common trajectories that shape people’s inclusionary and exclusionary experiences. To do so two main conceptual axes will be employed to trace informants’ accounts of their making a life in receiving European societies: sense of belonging and self-positioning. Sense of belonging and self-positioning represent good bridging concepts between a more abstract and idealistic reading of the notion of identity/ies in context and in the lived, historically situated experiences of people that strive daily to establish themselves as accepted, included and proactive subjects in social arenas. Sense of belonging and self-positioning in this specific context can be conceived as two different dimensions of a more general sense of self-identification in relation/contrast to the surrounding environment: on the one hand, belonging pertains to a more inward-looking and reflective process of self-identification, while on the other hand, self-positioning implies an outward-looking process in relation to a public and social context.