Dis/connections: expressions of belonging in non-Indigenous Australian non-fiction

Modern Australia is a society that has been built on migration - more than 97 per cent of the population has arrived via forced or voluntary relocation. As waves of settlers have come, originally from Europe and now, additionally, from Asia and Africa, belonging has been an issue with which successive generations of Australians have struggled. Everyone in Australia experiences dispossession, but clearly to varying degrees and with varying consequences. Not surprisingly, issues of belonging have found expression in Australia's non-Indigenous literary journalism. Memoirists and essayists have long been painting vivid pictures of experiences of belonging and disconnection that give voice to the issues being grappled with in the larger Australian community/ies. An examination of some examples of such writing informs a framing of belonging, suggesting it is dynamic and relational, achievable through interaction with place, culture and society.