The concept of belonging can only begin once you consider your identity and the categories that go into it. In order to do this, we must consider Nowicka’s (2006) outlook on the two types of identity we possess, individual identity that entails your own perception of yourself through the idea that there is no one else who is the exact same as yourself, that you are the only person with all of the various traits that make you who you are. The other identity form is social identity; this is what we examine when we want to categorise people, through finding distinct attributes that place them in a group of others with the same attributes. This is the identity that is decided for you by external factors such as where you are from, where your family are from, your education, tastes or even social class.

 

The difficulty in figuring out your own social identity lies in when you have qualities that can suit multiple categories, which in turn begins the struggle for finding where you belong. Nowicka explores the psychological effects of this in her study on dual-national children in Poland (Nowicka, 2006) where she collected responses from interviews of children who had one parent from Poland and the other from elsewhere and their views on their identity whilst living in Poland.

 

She found both positive and negative implications that dual heritage can have on developing minds but especially noted the ‘difficult burden’ and ‘stigma’ (Nowicka, 2006) this can cause. Seeing that in most cases, there was a clear prevailing culture from one parent or the other that presented in the child, Nowicka decided that the child couldn’t be ‘necessarily bicultural’ but then what is deemed as truly between two cultures? Does one have to be exactly half one culture and half another? It would be impossible to standardise exactly which characteristics someone picks up when experiencing two different cultures due to the complexity of the human mind but does that imply that a person is less of a specific race just because they don’t share stereotypes? This however, circles back to the two types of identity; you may feel equally split across two nationalities but if you present as more one than the other in your social identity then you are automatically viewed as this to the public. This evokes a consciousness when considering who you are presenting certain characteristics to which can lead to a confusion in your own sense of identity and belonging.