Trust and belonging in everyday relationships between people with different backgrounds

Session convener: Ella Heimonen ella.heimonen@uef.fi & Eerika Finell eerika.finell@uef.fi

Session description

Positive encounters in everyday life can be important in answering one’s need for belonging, as these encounters can facilitate building sustaining and rewarding social relationships. As societies become more diverse, the importance of forming such relationships with individuals who do not share one’s background (e.g. spoken language, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status) increases. However, individuals may avoid such encounters due to many reasons, including feelings of fear or anxiety. Positive encounters between people with different backgrounds in everyday life could increase trust as well as strengthen individuals’ sense of belonging in their everyday communities. Such encounters may also lead to developing more enduring relationships with people from different backgrounds, which can have a large impact on individual’s health and well-being and society at large.

This session explores trust and belonging in mundane relationships between people with different backgrounds. This includes questions about how trust and belonging shape these relationships as well as how individuals experience trust and belonging in their everyday relationships. Such relationships may include close relationships (e.g., friends, family, intimate partners), neighbors, colleagues and acquaintances, as well as more distal relationships, such as those formed in the third sector (e.g., NGOs, associations), in institutional contexts (e.g., schools or kindergarten) or on digital platforms.

Relevant questions may include, for example: what material, social or psychological elements hinder trust and belonging in relationships between people with different backgrounds? Which elements, in turn, can support them? How do individuals experience their everyday relationships of such nature; how are trust and belonging connected to these experiences? How do individuals deal with and make sense of mis- or distrust in their everyday relationships? How do close and rewarding relationships between people with different backgrounds develop? Whether and how may feelings of dis- or mistrust prevent one from forming such relationships? How do relationships between people with different backgrounds in everyday life, positive or negative, shape individuals’ sense of belonging and trust in society?

We invite presentations that explore these or related themes in everyday relationships between people with different backgrounds from diverse perspectives, disciplines, and methodological approaches.

Presentations are welcome in English.