ABSTRACT
In the matter of belongings there seems to be altogether too much and not enough to say. In approaching the questions which this volume raises, I have found myself constantly turning to a citational structure of thought: to snippets of conversation, extracts of texts and anecdotes exchanged over coffee or dinner. At one stage it seemed as if this entire project would emerge as a series of carefully chosen quotations barely interspersed with a few words of my own. That this is so is indicative of the composite and often clamorous nature of the stories we tell of with whom and to where we belong. My reluctance to produce a single voice, a narrative solely authored by myself, might not suit the conventional demands of academic research, but it does, I think, reflect the impossibility of writing a single story, an authoritative account of one's belongings which are given shape and meaning only through others. Telling stories in the UK-wide context of this volume, I am also concerned to not be cornered by the possible demand to 'represent' Wales, to figure its complexity in my own guise. In too many anthologies and edited collections, Welsh, Northern Irish and Scottish contributors stand as lone figures, denied the clamorous voices which shape our different contexts.
