This project emerged happenstance from the confluence of a lucky trip to Scotland and my own disillusionment.
As I’ve gone on about in previous posts, in 2023, I was worn thin on AI hype, grieving the capture and enclosure of my field by forces far removed from the participatory educational ideals I’d originally valued in digital pedagogy. At #OER23 in Inverness, I was heartened by the distributed digital work UHI showcased…it was human-focused and connected and tied to place and culture. I proposed a sabbatical project that would centre on UHI: I’d do a strengths-based case study of their digital and place-based practices, with belonging as a lens.
Belonging. So human and participatory and relational.
So pleasantly far from the nexus of political and digital weaponization and instrumentalization. Right?
Lolweep. I stand corrected, I guess.
Any academic will tell you the research process is mostly about finding out how much you don’t – and may never – know about a given thing. So when you choose a new research focus primarily because the term appears to sit at the intersection of all the things you want to study, rather than because you already know things about that focus, you take a certain risk. If you choose the focus in part to try to escape the forces gathering on the horizon, you may find yourself having miscalculated.
Je ne regrette rien. But belonging is definitely having a moment…and what it ends up signifying on the other end of whatever we are marching into, as a world, remains yet to be seen.
Amidst the rise of marketization and venture capital power across higher education, the term belonging has been gaining traction these past few years. The term itself is a bit of a Rorschach test: vested interests across the sector – from the most neoliberal to the most critically-inclined – can see a bit of what they value in it. Positive Sense of Belonging (or SoB, lol) is tied, via research, to outcomes of increased achievement and retention, as well to internal personal experiences that deepen individuals’ sense of connection and engagement.
Great. Except higher ed is a fraught political field at this juncture…and thus, belonging too, grows more fraught by the day.
In this neoliberal, austerity-based era of higher education, belonging is at risk of being weaponized. Right-wing political forces have mounted a backlash against the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives that gained a very brief toehold in higher ed in the wake of the 2020 public police murder of Black US citizen George Floyd…particularly in formerly colonial nations with similarly embedded structural bias barriers to educational attainment.
At the same time, higher education institutions are making an overt turn away from use of the term ‘DEI’ and towards belonging.
It’s not just in the US, either. No anti-DEI Executive Order currently threatens non-US institutions, but here in Canada, both McGill University and University of Alberta have lined up to rename their DEI offices with some version of belonging in the title.
It may be a coincidence. It may be because it’s easier to rename something than to fight for it. It may be because belonging signifies the intent of those DEI offices more broadly and effectively, by their own reckoning. But there’s something in that tidy narrative that makes me very uncomfortable. Because belonging also allows institutions to signal bland, inoffensive investment in student experience and socio-emotional well-being, with zero mention of race, structural inequities, sector underfunding or any of the other societal and digitally-enabled disenfranchisements that actually stratify education.
Given that issues – especially disparity, inequity, or exclusion – are seldom truly addressed without being named, I am suspicious af. This is belonging being deployed as, at best, a transactional placeholder used to elide politics and power relations.
Is belonging now reduced to a buzzword? A weaponized signal of instrumentalized versions of ‘student success’?
I refuse to cede the territory. The thing that I learned once I started learning about belonging is that the term is fundamentally relational. Full stop. From Maslow in 1962 onward, across the nearly 80 resources that make up the Annotated Bibliography of this project, plus the additional 25 or so that ended up in the paper I’ve submitted about this very issue of weaponized belonging, the term signifies relational connections amid power structures. IT IS A TERM THAT DOES NOT EXIST WITHOUT POWER RELATIONS.
So. The findings below are an effort to demonstrate that belonging still can be – and fundamentally needs to be – more. For higher education practitioners to engage in building belonging, for learners and/or for themselves, some concept of relational value needs to be present.
That’s how you thread the needle of digital belonging, even in an era of weaponization.
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As I explored at the end of my last post, what I found across the 30+ semi-structured interviews and group conversations with UHI staff was a professional culture of people clearly – if variably – accustomed to using digital tools in the service of learning, in thoughtful, critically-informed, and relational ways.
Core Digital Practices of Belonging
Multiple interviewees emphasized humanizing online learning spaces and experiences through a variety of practices, with digital tools referred to as bridges rather than replacements for human connection. Clearly communicated expectations, regular announcements, location-based check-ins that acknowledge students’ embodied contexts, and personal video notes for feedback were all practices emphasized by staff as means of trying to build belonging within digital learning environments. Student choice was highlighted, particularly in relation to practices such as the use of breakout rooms to build relationships in online courses: one instructor noted that they do try to offer small-group breakouts to enable connection and belonging, but recognize that some students may not want to build those ties as much as others. More broadly, synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities with flexible scheduling, particularly evening online classes that accommodate traditional work patterns in small Highland communities, were all part of the overall digital practice picture.
In terms of approaches that may be specific to UHI, there was mention of the development of “digitally rich spaces” in community locations like libraries and museums, alongside virtual mentoring circles and professional recognition portfolios that validate staff expertise across campuses. These practices reflect a common understanding of technology supporting rather than replacing cultural connections and community structures.
At UHI Perth, staff described online engagement as central to their approach. “The course is not a repository…we don’t just stick stuff up and it’s there, just course materials. It’s not a consolidation space, it’s actually a teaching space.” There tended to be consensus across locations and conversations that technology should support rather than drive pedagogical values.
At Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (SMO), the Gaelic partner college located on the Isle of Skye, an instructor emphasized how they establish connection when teaching remotely, taking time to personally address students at the start of class and to create space for conversation, especially when students may be quite anxious about speaking aloud in Gaelic. Similarly, in English-language offereings across multiple partner campuses, staff practices still highlighted relationality and the creation of digital opportunities to build connection through intentional and subject-relevant group work.
Overall, the institution has managed to create and support a professional culture within which most staff demonstrate a complex understanding of digital literacies and practices as pedagogical at their core, and as relational and human-centered practices. Trust and authenticity were words that came up repeatedly, both with respect to belonging but also simply in relation to teaching. Administrators, support staff, and educators all talked about online learning as a means to break down traditional barriers for non-traditional students…but as working best for those students when trust and relationality were centered.
Place as Central to Digital Learning
The existence of UHI enables students to remain in local communities while accessing educational experiences aimed at respecting, often incorporating, and fostering the cultural knowledge and traditions of the Highlands and islands. At the School of Adventure Studies in Fort William, an instructor emphasized how historically, the environment and people of the Highlands have been treated merely as resources. His teaching and research both focus on educational practices aimed at disrupting that legacy, through emphasis on and respect for place and culture.
The institution’s place-based mission and its digital and distributed programs are interwined, with online programming enabling both cultural preservation and regional sustainability. A Portree staff member noted: “Something like 80% percent of those that leave an island or rural areas to go to a big mainstream university don’t come back.” The very existence of UHI not only enables people to be educated in their home communities, but also provides jobs and a ladder for professional growth across the region.
The institution also navigates the balance between traditional and contemporary language use, creating digital environments that support both formal instruction and living language practice. At Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, technology enables not just education but cultural continuity, allowing “dispersed Gaelic speakers/learners to form learning communities” while simultaneously creating spaces where “traditional and modern language uses are negotiated.” This creates what one SMO instructor described as “hybrid cultural spaces” where differing forms of expertise can be recognized and valued.
All of this exists within complex power structures, in an institution where most of the same staff working hard to create belonging for digital and distance students report fairly minimal belonging to the overall umbrella of UHI, even if – in some cases a bigger if than others – they report a strong sense of belonging within their own partner college or department.
No place is perfect. But this work is genuine belonging work. And UHI exceeds the instrumentalization and reductionism currently signalled by popular adoption of the idea of ‘belonging’ by fostering a professional culture focused on values. Educational values. Cultural values. Relational values.
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