al-Qassas, Adil (2015) Displace or Be Displaced Narratives of Multiple Exile in the Sudanese Communities in Australia. PhD thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

This thesis consists of two parts. Both parts navigate the experience of displacement, in both realist and metaphorical modes, of a number of Sudanese expatriates to Australia. The first part, a fictional account in the form of a novella, employs different points of view to explore a range of diasporic encounters undergone by diverse Sudanese migrants and refugees prior to and during resettlement in Australia. Taking the events of the author’s life as its focus, the second part delves into narratives of personal, inner displacement that have deep roots in the history of Sudan and the question of a common national identity. The exegesis also examines the dynamics of his dualistic relationship with the Sudanese communities in Australia while sharing many of the same challenges and crises. His perspective, which can be understood in different ways as being partly inside and partly outside in relation to those communities and the wider Australian community, provides a position from which to view a series of Otherings and exclusions that challenge and displace identity while also contributing to the ‘forming’ of it. The novella, centred on a café in an inner suburb of Melbourne, portrays different responses, narrated in the protagonists own voices, to a conflict that erupts from a simple remark to which a renowned retired Sudanese football (soccer) player takes offence. Their responses, revealed to the narrator in private, allow the reader to listen to the diversity of personal histories and views that are able to exist and collide within larger national and postcolonial histories, the signs of which act in unexpected ways.

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