ABSTRACT
The concept of ‘belonging’ has such an embracing effect in English that it can encompass any form of association, including narrational or logical association, as in stories or classificatory systems, and appropriations which draw any manner of human or non-human elements towards one: ‘the author colleague’, ‘author illness’, ‘author cat’, ‘author way’. A common observation in and about Alltown is that in the past ‘cousins married cousins’, and that ‘original Alltown families’ were all related to each other. Similar ideas of interrelatedness are deployed in descriptions of present-day Alltown and are used to portray either its ‘parochial’ or its ‘friendly’ nature. A claim on the place entails a claim on those things that belong to the place. Exclusion is not value-free either. It frequently carries negative overtones, connotations of marginality or loss or deprivation.
