Belonging at academic conferences: Exploring power, identity and lived experience
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56433/1jh5mp36Keywords:
Sense of belonging, Academic Conferences, Lived Experiences of Attendees, Conference Belonging, Mixed MethodsAbstract
In the post-pandemic context of higher education, the ways academics and staff experience connection through meetings, events, and conferences have undergone significant change. On December 12, 2022, the Department for Learning and Teaching Enhancement at Edinburgh Napier University hosted ‘Beyond the Obvious: Exploring Online, In-Person, and Hybrid Conferences’, an event designed to explore how insights from online teaching and learning might inform the design of academic gatherings. Participants reflected six key themes: language, technology, third-space professionals, belonging, costs, and learning from pedagogy, and were invited to form research collectives. This article reports on the collective that explored sense of belonging, comprising nine researchers from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Belonging was defined as the experience of being welcomed, accepted, and included within a community, characterized by opportunities to build relationships, feel valued, and participate meaningfully in shared purposes. Drawing on thematic analysis, five themes were highlighted: (1) Community: Visibly Defined and Organically Found or Sought, (2) Equity: Embedded and Integrated Inclusivity, (3) Lived Experience: Impacts of Identity, Perception, and Memory, (4) Power Relationships: Positions, Credentials, and Hierarchical Complexity, and (5) Intentional Design: Strategic Hospitality and Continuous Reflection.
Findings highlight that conferences function as both relational and performative spaces that can either foster or inhibit belonging. While belonging is recognised as a fundamental human need, some participants did not seek it as a primary motivation for conference participation. The study called for an intentional, equity-driven conference design that accommodates diverse purposes and modes of engagement. Integrating belonging as a relational and structural practice can cultivate agency, authenticity, and inclusive community across the spectrum of academic participation.
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