Longing for Belonging among the Marginalized in Urban Australia

Longing for Belonging among the Marginalized in Urban Australia examines how Indigenous people, African refugees, and impoverished Whites in urban Australia, who are deemed “undesirable citizens” under neoliberal governance, experience citizenship in their everyday lives. Drawing on ethnography conducted in Adelaide and Sydney from 2014 to 2020, along with digital ethnography, it elucidates a new sense of belonging being developed across these groups that is mediated by their shared experiences of displacement and predicaments. While individuals of these groups are marginalized due to the reinforcement of race and homogenization of welfare beneficiaries as morally deficient and are ashamed to be aware of their norm violations, a cross-group sense of belonging has emerged that transverses racial and ethnic differences. It is based on mutual care, compassion, and empathy or a community mediated by the ethics of care, fostering a sense of belonging among members who, according to other paradigms of relatedness, might be seen as separate or unequal. The author maintains that this new sense of belonging, rooted in caring for others, can contribute to the development of horizontal citizenship by temporarily bridging differences in race, ethnicity, class, and gender, which can challenge neoliberal citizenship that values economic rationality, self-autonomy, and individualism.