Spaces of Longing and Belonging contains theoretical and interpretative studies of spatiality centered on a variety of literary and cultural contexts. The essays provide a collection of innovative scholarship on central questions relating to literary spatiality in a context of increased global awareness.

"Even as they see their wages go down and their buying power decrease, many parents are still putting their kids' material desires first. These parents struggle with how to handle children's consumer wants, which continue unabated despite the economic downturn. And, indeed, parents and other adults continue to spend billions of dollars on children every year. Why do children seem to desire so much, so often, so soon, and why do parents capitulate so readily? To determine what forces lie behind the onslaught of Nintendo Wiis and Bratz dolls, Allison J. Pugh spent three years observing and interviewing children and their families. In Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture, Pugh teases out the complex factors that contribute to how we buy, from lunchroom conversations about Game Boys to the stark inequalities facing American children. Pugh finds that children's desires stem less from striving for status or falling victim to advertising than from their yearning to join the conversation at school or in the neighborhood. Most parents respond to children's need to belong by buying the particular goods and experiences that act as passports in children's social worlds, because they sympathize with their children's fear of being different from their peers. Even under financial constraints, families prioritize children "feeling normal". Pugh masterfully illuminates the surprising similarities in the fears and hopes of parents and children from vastly different social contexts, showing that while corporate marketing and materialism play a part in the commodification of childhood, at the heart of the matter is the desire to belong."--pub. desc.

This book is fundamentally concerned with the relations among the theoretical categories of time, space and capital in India and shows registers of temporality and spatiality generated by historical phases of interaction with industrial capital.

In Tongues: On Longing and Belonging Through Language writers examine their intimate relationship with language in essays that are compelling and captivating. There are over 200 mother tongues spoken in Canada, and at least 5.8 million Canadians use two or more languages at home. This vital anthology opens a dialogue about this unique language diversity and probes the importance of language in our identity and the ways in which it shapes us. In this collection of deeply personal essays, twenty-six writers explore their connection with language, accents, and vocabularies, and contend with the ways they can be used as both bridge and weapon. Some explore the way power and privilege affect language learning, especially the shame and exclusion often felt by non-native English speakers in a white, settler, colonial nation. Some confront the pain of losing a mother tongue or an ancestral language along with the loss of community and highlight the empowerment that comes with reclamation. Others celebrate the joys of learning a new language and the power of connection. All underscore how language can offer transformation and collective healing to various communities. With contributions by: Kamal Al-Solaylee, Jenny Heijun Wills, Karen McBride, Melissa Bull, Leonarda Carranza, Adam Pottle, Kai Cheng Thom, Sigal Samuel, Rebecca Fisseha, Logan Broeckaert, Taslim Jaffer, Ashley Hynd, Jagtar Kaul Atwal, Téa Mutonji, Rowan McCandless, Sahar Golshan, Camila Justino, Amanda Leduc, Ayelet Tsabari, Carrianne Leung, Janet Hong, Danny Ramadan, Sediqa de Meijer, Jónína Kirton, and Eufemia Fantetti.

Contributions address the sites, practices, and narratives in which belonging is imagined, enacted and constrained, negotiated and contested. Focussing on three particular dimensions of belonging: belonging as space (neighbourhood, workplace, home), as practice (virtual, physical, cultural), and as biography (life stories, group narratives).

A fascinating ethnographic journey into migrant women's lives across two countries, Gender in Transnationalism highlights women's construction of 'home' between Morocco and Italy as a significant site whereby broader feelings and narratives of displacement and belonging can be grasped. Salih investigates what Moroccan women's relations with their adopted country are and how their identities, conceptualisations of home and cultural practices are shaped by the transnational dimension of their lives. This interdisciplinary book provides a gendered account of transnational migration, in the context of changing configurations in both the social sciences and people's lives, of notions of locality, identity, difference and citizenship, and by focusing on the 'lived experience' of Moroccan migrant women's transnationalism between Morocco and Italy. It will interest students and researchers of transnationalism, migration and gender.

There is a divine restlessness in the human heart, our eternal echo of longing that lives deep within us and never lets us settle for what we have or where we are.In this exquisitely crafted and inspirational book, John O'Donohue, author of the bestseller Anam Cara, explores the most basic of human desires - the desire to belong, a desire that constantly draws us toward new possibilities of self-discovery, friendship, and creativity.