by Asya Mukhamedrakhimova
MKH digital plubication © 2025
by Chiara Ferrari
Categories Life, World
Published December 7, 2024
What Does It Mean to Belong?

Wool-Drawings, by unknown

Where are you from? That’s a question I’ve always had a bit of trouble answering… The simple answer is Italy; I’m Chiara, an Italian Congolese currently living in London, but that’s not enough, is it? “Where are you really from?” is usually the question that follows… and the question that leads me into a spiral of existential questions and thoughts that hardly have an end. So I decided to write about it because I think, and deep down hope, that it may affect others too.

I was born in the Republic of Central Africa and have lived the entirety of my life (so far) travelling and relocating. The first country that comes to mind is Guatemala. Although I was too young to recall living there, I have an abstractly positive connection to it. Then I moved to Venezuela, a socialist country (at the time) under the rule of Chavez (a dictator to many) with a tense socio-political climate. Yet, it was one of the places where I was the happiest, met some of the best people and learned to enjoy living and cherish human connections. Then, changing to a former communist country, where connections and getting to know people seemed to be considered invasive, a country that reminds me of the colour grey and coldness, yet arguably the place where I made some of the most defining decisions in my life – Romania. But it didn’t end there as I moved back to my radiant Venezuela and then back to Romania. These are just a few of the countries I’ve had the luck (if that’s how we want to put it) to call home, the ones that have shaped me the most, and in all honesty, I have the strongest bond to. Most would say this was an amazing upbringing, discovering new cultures, learning new languages, and making plenty of friends all around the world – or at least this is the very brief summary I like to give people when they ask me, ‘How was it?’ But what I would really like to say is that I had to live learning how to constantly readapt – how to start a new life, relearn how to be myself in a new environment with new people, within new spaces, new religions and new traditions… It almost felt like adapting to a new world you didn’t know existed – but knowing that you can’t start from scratch. An upbringing that leaves you, or well – me, with a complex relationship with the idea of ‘belonging’. I’m sure every fifth culture kid can agree.

What does it mean to belong somewhere, where exactly do I belong, and what effect has this ‘international’ upbringing had on my identity and who I consider myself to be or to be from? Yes, don’t get me wrong; I am Italian, and I am Congolese, but do I belong to these countries? Does my nationality define me – or am I defined by the places I’ve grown up in? These are the thoughts that invade my mind when people ask me something relatively simple, like where I’m from. That’s when I start disassociating from others and the conversations with them and connect more with my inner dialogue. If you’ve ever been in a conversation with your ‘citizen of the world’ friend, and you think they’re being antisocial, don’t worry; they’re just having an existential crisis. They, just like me, are trying to find tangible answers to these questions …but I haven’t found them yet. Yet, I like to continue thinking about them and how this lack of understanding of what it means to belong or not belong has affected me and the way I go through life.

I think the first time I started to dwell on the feeling of belonging was when I had to move from Venezuela to Romania… quite a drastic change, as you can imagine. I was moving from a country with warm weather and even warmer people, where no matter where you end up, people appeared to know how to live and, most importantly, how to appreciate life: to a country where I suffered the cold and even more the glacial people. Everyone seemed way too serious for me, as a 12-year-old, to understand. I arrived feeling lost, feeling like I should’ve been happy to move to a country closer to “home”, being only a 2-hour and 10-minute flight away from Rome, but the truth was that Valencia, Venezuela, had become my home. So there I was, feeling further away from home than ever, yet struggling to understand why. I found myself submerging in the culture that I had left behind and being perceived weirdly for it, as it didn’t reflect the nationality and ethnicity I was meant to represent. After answering the question, “Why are you listening to that music if you’re Italian?” for the 100th time, I asked myself where I belonged and if Venezuela was that place. Was it because I was so used to it, and if so, could I belong in this new place too? Or should I have been identifying more with my nationality and leaving the ‘adopted’ countries and everything I had gotten out of it? And I think that’s what I started doing. Whether I like to admit it or not, I found refuge in my nationality and used that as a leading element in defining my identity for a while in Romania. I’m not sure I agreed with this method, but it was an easy answer to all my questions at the time.

As humans, we often grow up thinking that we are defined by the places and communities we are born and grow up in. For many, this means one country, one city, one neighbourhood and the people within them – and for many years, I was envious of this linear and more static life. Of having the possibility to call one single place home, to be part of that group of friends you’ve had since birth and grew up going to the same school with, and to always go back home to that place where nothing changes. I often thought it would lead to more stability in life, more security, and assure a more traditional future – but as I started to realise a few years back – that’s not always the case. Even for those with such stability, belonging is not always guaranteed. I’ve met many people who, despite having this lifestyle, still don’t know what it means to belong or refuse to belong to that place and community they’ve been assigned to since birth. Because defining ourselves or our identities to geographical locations and national borders seems limiting and sometimes even deceiving. In fact, for these reasons (and many others), many end up distancing themselves from their natal countries and that place they’ve always considered home – moving to places that feel more like them. So, is it all a false perception? Have I grown up feeling like I’ve missed this sense of belonging when, in reality, it doesn’t exist? And is that sense something we decide to create within ourselves?

Every year that passed, I couldn’t wait for the moment when I would get the chance to settle down and decide for myself where I would live “forever” and where I would be able to belong. I wish I could’ve known, back then, that this would be the exact place where I would realise that there’s no such thing as true belonging. That place was London, which is not very original, I know. But having studied most of my life in English, following their educational system, and watching way too many London-set romantic comedies (or more like Nothing Hill 100 times) – I thought it was the place to be and where I would fit in best. So here I am today, in London, the London I wanted to move to so badly. But guess what? After years of trying to find my place and betting all my money on London to give me this sense of belonging, I’ve realised that I don’t think I belong here after all.

The truth is belonging and geographical location are not always intertwined. I don’t belong anywhere and everywhere at the same time. And with the years passing, like the people who’ve grown up with that more “traditional” lifestyle,  I realise that a place isn’t a determining factor in developing your persona and who you want to be. If you’re lucky enough to know who you are and the life you want to have, it’s merely an accessory. That’s not something I know yet, but I am closer to accepting my upbringing and identity without feeling like I’m missing out on something. I’m starting to appreciate this “citizen of the world” tag. Ultimately, it has given me way more benefits than it did questions. It’s like a cape that only I (or a few) have. And one day, if not now, it will bring me closer to where I want to get. So now, with years of multicultural experiences and quite a unique perspective on places and people, I am ready to seek the true meaning of belonging. What about you? Do you want to belong?

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