Applying visual methods in the study of place affiliation, mobility, and belonging: Special Issue: Visual Methodologies

In this short essay we present a Danish research project called ‘Images of the Global Periphery’. Through the use of visual methodologies, the project focuses on belonging and home-making among newcomers, thereby addressing how geographic mobility is implicated in ‘everyday belonging’ and people’s experiences of being ‘at home’. The essay argues that a visual approach provides valuable empirical additions to our understanding - and it contributes to a further theorizing - of place affiliation, mobility and belonging in a globalized world. Furthermore, while most previous research on globalization, belonging, and mobility have failed to incorporate gender perspectives, our preliminary empirical findings indicate that gender, marital status, parenthood, job situation and country of origin all matter in developing a sense of belonging. Such positionalities play a role in the attempt to understand the uneven and often contradictory ways in which global processes and local identities come together.