Space and place in narratives by Middle Eastern Australian authors

This study, written in four parts, examines how Middle Eastern Australian authors represent space and place in their novels, memoirs, and autobiographies. Part one examines two novels by Randa Abdel-Fattah and two others by Michael Mohammed Ahmad, focusing on the construction of belonging within the urban landscapes. Abdel-Fattah’s young female protagonists challenge conventional notions of identity and belonging through their engagement with urban spaces as they rethink their religious and cultural backgrounds. The works of Ahmad depict the experiences of a young male character, Bani, in Western Sydney, who reacts intellectually to racial stereotypes and stigmatisations. The second part offers an extended analysis of camps and nature, focusing on Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains. First, it examines the strategies of subjugation the authorities employ to dehumanise detained refugees. Second, it explores how nature within these camps becomes a source of resilience. This chapter discusses Australia’s strict border policies, their consequences for detainees, and how detainees resist through their interactions with nature. In part three, Sam Dastyari’s One Halal of a Story, and Saeed Fassaei’s Rising from the Shadows provide insights into the challenges the multicultural communities face in Australia. The narratives explore spatial mobility, the commodification of multiculturalism, and societal hopelessness. Through Dastyari’s political autobiography, I maintain that immigrants often question strategies of multiculturalism. On the one hand, the immigrant communities feel pressured to assimilate; on the other, the Anglo-European working-class groups, who long for a nostalgic attachment to the “nation,” engage in promoting white nationalism. In a memoir, Rising from the Shadows, Fassaei’s experience of trauma, represented through the remembrance of a friend’s dismembered body, helps to discuss the complexities of immigration to a “multicultural” nation. The narrator is initially unable to face the “Real” Australia, becoming haunted by images from his traumatic past. As the narrator explores the new symbolic order in Australia, he begins to reshape his narrative and create a new mental picture of the country. The fourth and final part of the dissertation focuses on the relationship between gender, space, and cultural stereotypes. Soheila Zanjani’s memoir, Scattered Pearls, and Loubna Haikal’s novel, Seducing Mr Maclean, shed light on how spatial dimensions influence gender dynamics and femininity. In light of Zanjani’s Scattered Pearls, I study the establishment of masculinist spaces and the imposition of domestic duties to restrict women’s mobility. Zanjani’s narrative exemplifies spatial control, as her mobility is monitored and curtailed within the domestic and urban spaces. Zanjani’s narrative also highlights the “spatial paradox”: women face spatial limitations and discrimination despite being encouraged to participate in public spaces. In Haikal’s novel Seducing Mr Maclean, I investigate the experiences and perceptions of Australian public and private spaces and their link back to the homeland. The unnamed female narrator faces objectification and the male gaze in Australia, but she creates a space of “seduction” to challenge power dynamics. In conclusion, while different novels by Australian authors of Middle Eastern descent attend to various aspects of spatial perceptions, they all share that their differences in ethnic background, their past spatial experiences back in the homeland, and the sexual stereotypes about them mutually affect their understanding and their sense of belonging to Australian spaces.<p></p>