A Sense of Belonging in Re-Membering: Anthropocosmic Connection in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

In the current century, geographic and psychological separations from familial and cultural connections have become endemic. The various fields of social sciences have made belonging vis à vis existential alienation a focal issue with an emphasis on the need for localized belonging. This article argues that there is an innate predisposition within the self that must connect to another, a “re-membering”—a compelling humanistic need to connect and become a member, yet again, of a greater collective. It is suggested herein that this predisposition stems from the need to reclaim our anthropocosmic connection of being embedded in the world beyond, as opposed to an anthrocentric view that instigates an entity-in-isolation mentality.

KEYWORDS:

• Anthropocosmic
• belonging
• community
• Durkheim
• globalization
• self

Notes

1. Heikki Patomaki is Professor of World Politics and the Vice Director of the Centre of Excellence in Global Governance Research at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is also an Innovation Professor of Human Security–Globalisation and Global Institutions at the RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

2. Xenophobia and racism being the extreme example of this state of mind that is often due to remaining in one's intergenerational locale since birth, exacerbating an inward-looking perspective.

3. For example, mainly in the West, weddings and funerals now take place outside churches or spaces consecrated by a priest-caste, and often in natural settings.

4. These articles outline the meeting point of transference of the mundane to the sacred within common psycho-physical spaces—whether that psycho-physical space is a roadside, a film, or the Internet. One could also include here the skin and body generally as in tattooing and piercings—a cult of modern Western youth—a practice undertaken in lieu of the disintegration of rites of passage from child to adult in postmodern society: an act of transcending pain to reach the other and bonding within a sub-culture, the members of which pierce and tattoo their bodies as a common symbol. See Rush (2005) who calls the body “sacred geography” in this sub-cultural context.

5. 1 Quotes from Durkheim (1954), pp. 37, 38, 229, 413, 317 respectively.

6. One assumes what is meant here as “degrees” is, for example, “significant” as opposed to “sacred” sites demarcation as found in Australian Aboriginal societies; the Eucharist in the Catholic church is more sacred than the alter on which it's consecrated; the cow in Indian Hinduism is more sacred than a picture of a deity, and so on. Hence, degrees of sacredness relative to the particular doctrines or practices of a given religion or culture.

7. This issue appears to have had considerable attention in sociology during the 1980s and 1990s, but currently, sacredness in postmodernity is predominantly addressed by evolutionary anthropologists and psychologists. For a brief overview of the literature, see Alcorta and (2005)., Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 323–359.

8. As translated by Tu Weiming in dialogue with Jerome Kagan, April 9, 2010.

9. At the time of writing, at any given moment there are approximately 30 million people speaking face to face on Skype.

10. To illustrate: In 2008, while visiting a village on the far west coast of the island of Bali, Indonesia, I met an old man who spoke weekly to his granddaughter studying in the United States on a mobile phone (10/minute). Nevertheless, he still ploughed his rice fields with bullocks, had only a well in his yard for water, and lived as his ancestors had for centuries. The man glowed with a pride of being “cosmopolitan”—he had personal connection with the outside world through an extension of self (family) in another land and culture. His perspectives had altered, but he was firmly embedded and content in his traditional values: “I have enough and I am happy.” One wonders if his granddaughter has a different view.

11. This oscillating syndrome is indicative in situations of one-on-one violence such as domestic violence, street gang violence, and bar brawls.

12. 9/11—and the dramatic footage of the twin towers collapsing—is an example of this immediacy of information. Within a day, only the most isolated areas of the world would not have known of the event.

13. Internet—global social and intellectual networking, as it informs opinions, expands knowledge systems and inter-relationships with the world, accordingly, influencing and determining individuals’ ideas and actions within his/her localized community.

14. China, for example, has begun investing substantial amounts of money into preservation and enhancement of the cultures of the registered 55 ethnic minority groups throughout the mainland. This includes projects to maintain traditional architectures, languages, and folk arts and crafts. See PRC policy documents (bi-lingual) http://eng.chinalawinfo.com/Wbk/displayModeTwo.asp?id=20&keyword=(accessed July 28, 2012). This is adjunct to the promotion of Han culture and history.