Identity, Community and Belonging in EAP: Insights and Reflections on the BALEAP Professional Issues Meeting (PIM) Edinburgh 2025

Abstract

This event review examines the BALEAP PIM Edinburgh 2025, a gathering that used the theme of identity, community and belonging to provoke critical reflection on the evolving realities of EAP. Rather than reproducing familiar narratives of integration, the PIM unsettled them, offering a multi-layered analysis of how belonging is negotiated, resisted and reshaped in contemporary higher education. Across plenaries and presentations, belonging emerged as a contested process rather than an outcome, while identity was framed as relational, power-mediated and deeply intertwined with literacy practices. The event highlighted community as a relational - not structural - achievement, and foregrounded the complexities introduced by generative AI, displacement and global inequality. Through these interconnected themes, the PIM advanced a vision of EAP as a dynamic, intellectual and ethical space where agency, voice and critical awareness are central. This review argues that such perspectives point toward a more justice-oriented, reflexive and future-focused EAP landscape.