The Politics of Belonging: Insiders, Outsiders, and Social Change

There is a game I play, called “Zooming in, Zooming Out.” Basically, it’s a game of widening and narrowing lenses back and forth, up and down, inside out. This begins somewhere around earth worms, and expands to outer space. My real life, small community dynamics are my favorite microcosms to study, because I can examine my subjectivity and interpersonal relationships in very close proximity to the gradual, inevitable tinge seeping in from the larger societal landscape-- all off the layers and levels at once, if I squint a little and hold on tight without thinking too hard. It’s a bit like reading tea leaves, and a bit like sociological meteorology. Can I predict the forecast for changing social norms? What does my community teach me about the future trajectory of shifting tides in society? And what do those shifting tides mean for my community?

At large, once fringe movements for progressive social change have seemingly, suddenly flooded mainstream awareness. Most notably, the call for racial justice in the fallout of generations of unchecked systemic white supremacy. To people who live almost exclusively in the/a mainstream (who have insider status in the mainstream), it may appear (at least in experience) that various “fringe” and “extreme” ways of being/seeing are totally new to the scene, when in reality they’ve always been lurking in hidey holes or yelling from megaphones, and simply were...well, not in mainstream awareness yet.

Many marginalized or fringe movements remain content to create their own forms of insider status and access to belonging, and quite happily define themselves solely in opposition to the dominant group narratives. But when these outliers find their footing, gain in numbers and visibility, and much more mysterious forces of cultural change suddenly make it the time and place for new norms to arise again, the push for the next widespread social order (pervading the mainstream) is ripe for the picking. The resistance that compels the push for change is like a slingshot that finally releases straight towards a bullseye. These forces of social change can be seen as collectives of “outsiders” encroaching on the status quo, and the status quo can be seen as collectives of “insiders” either opening the floodgates to change, or battening down the hatches. 

Zooming back down to the community level, the arrival of an outsider always represents an influx of this larger social change, new ways of seeing and being, technological (material or socio-cultural) advancement, and other challenges to the established norm.  The insider represents salt of the earth sensibility, tradition, and reverence for maintaining community stability (sometimes called, “The way things have always been, and always should be.”). I’m sugar coating it, definitely. There are darker aspects at play here. But in a small community, this is the essential dynamic... Out with the old, in with the new. Newcomers are intrinsically rabble rousers. But the old tends not to go down without a fight, and perhaps this is not always purely regressive, depending on the particularities. 

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

The phenomenon of insiders and outsiders is in and of itself fascinating, as it seems to reveal something fundamental in human social mechanics, scarcity mindsets, and in-group, out-group psychology. But beyond understanding the cogs and wheels of predictability in human behavior, awareness is always the first step in developing better (more conscious) relationships with ourselves and others. To be aware of insider-outsider dynamics as they play out in real time, creates the space necessary to make adjustments in behavior. Awareness would also allow for the unavoidable messiness in times of transition, to be accommodated with more grace, and less chaotic destruction in clinging or dismantling. Effort lends itself to eventual ease. 

Insider-outsider dynamics don't just occur in the realm of tangible place-bound identity; a 'place' can also be located strictly within the realm of ideas, which are always influenced by a culmination of lived and limited experiences. Often, both kinds of places (tangible-world and ideas-world) operate simultaneously within insider-outsider dynamics. Certain ideologies correlate with certain place-bound identities, and within all ideologies there are diametrically opposed ways of being that define themselves in direct relationship to one another. Being an “insider” wholly depends on the existence of “outsiders,” and vice versa. Insider-outsider dynamics exist at every layer of community organization, starting in families and extending outwards into friend groups, social circles, communities, counties, regions, and society at large. 

When most people in a community have relatively easy access to an insider status, rejection from group belonging is something that can only be warranted under extreme, individualized circumstances; rightfully, if one is failing to adhere to group norms in a way that is dangerous to the community, or wrongfully, if one is accused of witchcraft for failing to adhere to group norms in and of itself (i.e. is accused of harmful behavior for simply failing to adhere to group norms, as if deviance from norms is inherently pathological/violent). 

When a somewhat equal proportion of people have an insider status and an outsider status (this can happen when there is a sudden and overwhelming arrival of newcomers and the change they bring with them), there is an unavoidable friction between groups. Power is connection, and once outsiders gain their own in-group belonging among themselves (have enough power in numbers that they come to represent their own force of collective influence), a shadow of threat begins to loom overhead the people who were once the established force of collective power/in group protection. 

Those with long established insider status fear losing belonging to the outsiders, if the outsider criteria for belonging gains dominance. If an outsider’s way of seeing/being becomes the new normal, and the established insiders are unable to change along with those rapid and strange shifting tides of normalcy, they sense the risk of being cast out of the belonging that, until this point, was somewhat of a given. In-group belonging provides a sense of safety, security, and identity. On a deep level, it’s about survival. Often, our unconscious feelings, responses, and reactions that occur on more domesticated levels of social interaction, are either primal or trauma-driven. 

Insider-outsider dynamics are born from in-group, out-group psychologies around simple questions of circumstance like: Who got here first? Which group holds the majority? Who has access to the dominant group belonging, through avenues of social capital gained by adhering to group norms and virtue signaling? Which people hold the most power within that hierarchy? Additionally, an outsider status can be achieved by a person with insider access, if they simply embody the voice of dissent, or a minority, contrary viewpoint/way of being within that group belonging. A person who holds insider status at large can experience outsider status within their smaller social location, and vice versa. A group that is more dominant at large, can be marginalized within a small town community. These are the touchstones, but then I find myself thinking about the deep seated fearfulness and mistrust of newcomers-as-colonizers, the sunk cost fallacy, and the fascinating contextual layers and intersecting issues of identity and lived experience (between and across generations, place-bound identity, socio-economic backgrounds, race, neurodiversity, upbringing, among other things). 

Place and self are bedfellows; they shape-shift one another. Humans have a chameleon-like quality in our social mannerisms and in our nervous systems. We instinctively mirror the behavior of the people around us, and over time our bodies settle to the rhyme and rhythm of the landscape that surrounds us. It would not be at all a poetic exaggeration to say we live OF, as much as on, the land. The land lives in us as much as we live on the land, acknowledges us as much as we acknowledge it. 

Culture is created, in part, by the tone and flavor of the land, and is shaped, in part, by the way the land compels systems of human organization. The land informs population density, access to resources, architectural design, food production, transportation, city planning, so on and so forth. Beyond that, certain histories and life stories intersect within certain regions. Most small town local cultures are a result of cross pollinating populations from all over the world, coming together in unique hybrids, and coming apart in unique divisions determined by who defines whom as the “other.” 

We plug in to the land, we plug in to a place-- to the extent that it may take a city dweller months of restlessness to adjust to the relative stillness of country living, and it may likewise take a country dweller months of riding over stimulation to adjust to the relative sensory saturation of a big city.  This means that place-bound identity is “real” in a way other aspects of identity are more easily dissected as a pure social construct. When it comes to communing with the land, ancestral legacy/blood ties, and, in the case of small towns, some degree of insular living and therefore thinking, the stakes of failing to achieve in-group belonging can feel quite pronounced. 

To achieve the ultimate insider status of place-bound identity--to become “a local”--a person’s ancestral legacy must be tied to the region for all of living memory. Meaning: a person’s people must have lived in the area for as long as anyone can remember, extending back and back to a time before which no one can recall where else they may have come from beyond some vague notion of “being Irish.” 

Colonization refers to a very specific process. These days, on a community level, we’re more likely to talk about gentrification or a booming tourist industry than refer to the continued processes of colonization within ideologies, or the colonization of small town America. But, in broadest sweeping terms, a colonizer is an outsider who gains significant socio-cultural presence/dominance/control over a region/culture/land body that is not their motherland and wherein a group is already indigenously occupying the region. Psychologically, the arrival of any outsider feels like colonization. Many people who experience the threat of changing social norms are the descendants of colonizers and settlers themselves, however much they may have earned the immediate in-group belonging as a “local.” That said, if the ultimate insider status of place-bound identity is achieved through one’s family being tied to the region for all of living memory, then there are plenty of people here who, in fact, rightfully do (at least) experience themselves as “locals.”  

In a small town, an aspect of the sunk cost fallacy determines social standing. In this case (as is the case in many forms of human relationship) it’s not so much a sunk cost fallacy as a sunk cost reality. The longer you and/or your family have been tied to the region, the more social clout as an “insider” you carry (depending on reputation), and it’s not all smoke and mirrors. You got there first. You know the territory. You’re privy to the insider intelligence. Plus, you’ve likely poured decades of blood, sweat, grief, love, death, and trying into the place, which comes with inherent rewards and privileges. You’ve got the visibility; people know you, they know your character. They know your face. 

Showing face actually matters quite a lot, in a small town where everybody knows everybody. Simply not knowing somebody is an immediate indication of outsider status. Conversely, simply being there a while and revealing sturdy-enough character and willingness to show up adhering to group norms/traditions, is enough to gain insider status over time. 

Being an insider evokes a sense that surely your own experience deserves to take precedence. Most likely, as an insider you are probably one of the lucky ones whose sense of identity is securely tied to a place (literally or culturally-socially) in ways seen and unseen. Small town pride is a bit of a novelty, to people who grew up in the monocultural suburbs far from their motherlands, and feel as if they’re from nowhere in particular, or at least know they are far from home. 

This is the core experience of being an outsider. It’s hard to imagine having such a cohesive place-based identity if you and your family have never had one in living memory, and if you do have a place-based identity it’s impossible not to take it for granted. Perhaps it is these folks in particular who are most prone to set up camp in ideological belonging. 

Anything perceived as a threat to the insider identity--including the arrival of a newcomer, with all their outsider influences--can be experienced as a threat of annihilation, at least to the unconscious psyche. So the insiders are secure but threatened by loss of this security, and the outsiders are insecure but compelled by their visions of the larger world to make their mark. 

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, where insider-outsider relations are concerned, there can be an element of the sunk cost fallacy OR the sunk cost reality. Change is hard. Most of us don’t relish change (although some of us cannot tolerate stagnation). And the longer something has been a certain way, the more we resist any movement. 

Change is destabilizing in the transition to a new order. It requires an abundance of energy and attention to aid the new social order arising, and these things are especially scarce in the seasons of crisis that are often a major catalyst for social change. At the same time, there can be an instance where what is tried and true must be preserved for the sake of community stability, at least in the short term. 

The rewards of long term commitment truly know no bounds; it’s only through commitment (staying even when we want to leave) that our communities reap what they sow. So, the insiders relate to the outsiders like, “Look, I’ve put in my time. And I don’t know you. Are you even here to stay? You don’t know this place. I don’t trust you.” And the outsiders relate to the insiders like, “Y’all don't have a lot of self awareness. I can see what you can’t see, because you’re too close to the problems at hand. I live here too, and I get a voice. We all are allowed to belong here.” 

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