Displaced Mothers Respond: Intergenerational Responsibilities in and around the texts of F.A. and Lily Brett

Migration to Australia creates a site of encounter. On this site, 'migrants' and 'Australia' respond to and become each other, as they negotiate forms and levels of responsibility for their newly shared site. Citizens and non-citizens who have been displaced from distant sites of violence and persecution respond continually to intersections of current events and previous displacements, of children's questions and revived memories. Such intersections recur in moments of eating, sleeping, working, driving, talking and media consumption, among others, as the meetings of past and present, self and other, 'here' and 'there' suffuse daily interactions. Interactions range from those with the effects of international media representations and government policies to the responsibilities of family relations, especially those between remembering parents and inquiring children.