Borders, Belonging and (B)othering: An Ethnographic Approach to Spatial Manifestations of Difference and Inequality

This doctoral thesis adresses the production of borders (bordering) that produce Flanders’ contemporary Other on the axis of migration and poverty. Through four ethnographic studies presented as journal articles, this research explores the underlying, interactive dynamics that produce this Other, their impact and how and by whom they can be negotiated. This sheds light on experiences and interactions on the micro-level of society, as well as the role of intermediaries and gatekeepers at the meso-level. In addition, the work explores the possibilities and limitations of etnography: to what extent is this method able to assemble a bottom-up image of multiscalar phenomena like poverty and migration?
An introductory chapter situates these research questions in their societal context, proposes a theoretical framework of othering and bordering to interpret exclusion processes, and critically reflects on research methods and science in a context of project-based and output-oriented research. Next, four studies adress the production of the Other respectively in context of the housing market, public space, the work place and non-urban environments.
A first study focuses on strategies on the private rental housing market of low-income families on the one hand, and landlords and brokers on the other. The work shows that income-based selection and discrimination are dynamic and interactive. Aimed at opposing goals, actors at both sides of the rental market learn from one another, and mutually adapt their strategies. Due to the scarcity of affordable housing on the private rental market, people labeled as ‘undesirable tenant’ systematically get the short end of the stick. Candidate-tenants in poverty show awareness of their position as Other and creatively seek ways to cope with these unequal power relations and constantly changing selection and discrimination strategies.
A second study shows the Other in the shape of young people, whose presence in public space is being problematized. While local policy makers increasingly emphasise control and social order, critical youthwork fights against the negative consequences of conflictual exclusion. They build networks and alter the dominant narrative, both among young people and their institutional surroundings. In this endeavour, they depend strongly on their immediate environment. The study shows that autonomy is crucial for the critical youth worker as professional intermediary, in order to attenuate oppositions and to find a balance between emancipation on the one hand, and the goals and logics of local policy makers on the other. 

A third study adresses the conditions that contribute to perceptions of diversity as (un)problematic at the micro-scale. We analyse how organisational and material constellations of two work places influence solidarity in diversity. From our cases, solidarity in diversity appears to develop best when enforces, repetitive intercultural contact takes place, in interdependency and in function of a clearly defined shared goal. Managers influence this proces by defining the goal for collective struggle, by organising interdepency in the workflow, by making encounter possible and necessary, and by creating place-based, shared norms and values. Inequality and discriminations on the workfloor in contrast lead to deviant norms, values and goals within subgroups, and negatively impact the organisational power of authority figures.
A fourth chapter sews together the different life domains through a focus on how a sense of belonging develops in a rural context. The life history of a man born in Afghanistan shows how the construction of the Other produces specific mobilities, which continuously inform new aspects of one’s position and identity. Simultaneously the study demonstrates how previous experiences and future projects shape interpretations of belonging. The joint analysis of this life history and one of a woman born in Congo, further reveals how a sense of belonging emerges through ongoing negotiation over borders, caught in a tension between stasis and movement, which never seems complete.
The conclusion posits that the figure of the Other in its everyday imaginations is based on the logics and power (im)balances within specific spaces, in function of situated, mostly economic interests of dominant actors. The categories that inform this imagination are largely shaped at the macro-level and materialize on the local level. In consequence, resistance situated in the limited space for agency and negotiation at the microlevel rarely results in structural change. At this level, persons on the crossroads of migration and poverty in Flanders experience a cumulation of exlusionary mechanisms over different life domains. Critical social work at the mesolevel can counter or attenuate this proces, but is strongly dependent on its political context for results.