Niro Kandasamy

‘The Craft of Belonging: Exploring the Resettlement Experiences of Young Tamil Survivors of Sri Lanka’s Civil War‘ (PhD in History, 2019). Belonging and memory, shaped by social and political conditions of civil war and forced migration, are the central themes of this thesis, which explores the life stories of 36 young Tamil people who arrived in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s at the height of Sri Lanka’s civil war. It reveals insights into how young Tamils skilfully challenged their marginalised status, as subjects who have fled persecution in the homeland and as forced migrants in the new land, thus articulating multiple ways of belonging in settler-colonial Australia. The young Tamils craft strategies and coping mechanisms that emphasise ongoing processes of belonging, against social and political structures that reinforced their marginalisation.

Supervisors: Professor Joy Damousi, Dr Jordana Silverstein