Local Community, Mobility and Belonging

The purpose of this article is to pose some theoretical questions to the relations between local community, mobility and belonging. In continuation the methodological implications of the theoretical debate are discussed. The article also outlines different perspectives on local neighbourhoods, recent developments in the understandings of mobility and local communities, and presents different theoretical views on local belonging. These questions highlight the necessity to discuss and investigate two overall narratives in social theory about the connection between space and social relations. Namely, 1) that social relations in the late modern society has been lifted from a local geographical context and restructured in a global context, because individuals’ attachment to geographical place has been eroded. 2) We want to question the traditional assumptions connected to socio-­‐economic segregation labelling the marginalised groups as contained in local neighbourhoods, while ascribing freedom and reflexivity exclusively to the middle and upper classes. The study of local communities in urban environments has a long tradition in the science of sociology and it is concluded that revitalizing and methodologically updating the classic Chicago school of sociology can create a productive approach to the study of local community, mobility and belonging.