Mapping Belonging in Higher Education: Tracing Relationality Across Digital and Place-Based Literature

What does belonging mean in a learning context, in this globalized digital age? What practices – whatcombination of pedagogical, institutional, and cultural elements – can help foster an individual’s sense of being partof something bigger than themselves, educationally? And how do socio-material principles and approaches of digitalbelonging align with the literature on belonging as a placed and relational experience? The article explores howbelonging as a signifier is shifting in contemporary Higher Education, risking weaponization and neutralization ofthe term. The paper offers a critical theorization of the terms belonging and State of Belonging (SoB), synthesizinghow the concepts are framed and understood across axes of identity, culture, disciplinary field, and learning modality,through multiple theoretical lenses. The aim of the paper is to make visible the various ways in which SoB operatesin the complex digital environments of higher education, with emphasis on how the concept consistently refers torelational connections and power relations, no matter the context