bell hooks

What does it mean to call a place home? Who is allowed to become a member of a community? When can we say that we truly belong? These are some of the questions of place and belonging that renowned cultural critic bell hooks examines in her new book, Belonging: A Culture of Place. Traversing past and present, Belonging charts a cyclical journey in which hooks moves from place to place, from country to city and back again, only to end where she began--her old Kentucky home. hooks has written provocatively about race, gender, and class; and in this book she turns her attention to focus on issues of land and land ownership. Reflecting on the fact that 90% of all black people lived in the agrarian South before mass migration to northern cities in the early 1900s, she writes about black farmers, about black folks who have been committed both in the past and in the present to local food production, to being organic, and to finding solace in nature. Naturally, it would be impossible to contemplate these issues without thinking about the politics of race and class. Reflecting on the racism that continues to find expression in the world of real estate, she writes about segregation in housing and economic racialized zoning. In these critical essays, hooks finds surprising connections that link of the environment and sustainability to the politics of race and class that reach far beyond Kentucky. With characteristic insight and honesty, Belonging offers a remarkable vision of a world where all people--wherever they may call home--can live fully and well, where everyone can belong.

A Culture of Place

Belonging

💒lara

The shamanic plants and the worlds that they reveal are the worlds from which we imagine that we came long ago, worlds of light and power and beauty ... We can claim this prodigal legacy only as quickly as we can remake our language and ourselves. Remaking out language means rejecting the image of ourselves inherited from dominator culture ... Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored." 

When I leave my small flat in an urban world where nature has been so relentlessly assaulted that it is easy to forget to look at a tree a sky, a flower emerging in a sea of trash, and go to the country, I seek renewal. To live in communion with the earth fully acknowledging nature's power with humility and grace is a practice of spiritual mindfulness that heals and restores. Making peace with the earth we make the world a place where we can be one with nature. We create and sustain environments where we can come back to ourselves, where we can return home, stand on solid ground, and be a true WitnesS.

damn now i feel sad that ill never really get the full experience of just lingering w my boys on some front steps or in an alleyway or on a street corner - that thing that men all around the world do and look cool doing. the gendered dimension/exclusionary aspect of the third place + public space is so interesting. who has the privilege of that feeling of belonging? of taking up space? of safety?

Street corners have always been space that has belonged to men-patriarchal territory. The feminist movement did not change that. Just as it was not powerful enough to take back the night and make the dark a safe place for women to lurk, roam, and meander at will, it was not able to change the ethos of the street corner gender equality in the workplace, yes, but the street corner turns every woman who dares lurk into a body selling herself, a body looking for drugs, a body going down. A female lurking, lingering, lounging on a street corner is seen by everyone, looked at, observed. Whether she wants to be or not she is prey for the predator, for the Man, be he pimp, police, or just passerby. In cities women have no Outdoor territory to occupy. They must be endlessly moving or enclosed. They must have a destination. They cannot loiter or linger. 

Belonging quotes

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