Feeling global belonging: Sensorial experiences in global education

Abstract

Global citizenship education (GCE) seeks to develop critical thinking and self-reflexivity and, crucially, to create feelings of belonging to a common humanity. Although the subjectivity of belonging has been widely recognized, gaps remain around the micro-level experiences and practices that foster global identities. This article addresses these questions through the analysis of the individual’s lived experience on an international GCE programme. It will be argued that global belonging is a transformative process of self-identity, shaped primarily through shared sensorial experience where the unfamiliar becomes familiar. The senses here help to create new personal and shared norms building trust, bonds and belonging between individuals from different backgrounds. Thus, in order to understand the journey towards feelings of global belonging, we must look to the senses as key sites of transformation.