Co-becoming with angophora: performing more-than-human belongings in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

Abstract

Belonging in Australian national parks has long been associated with universal ideas of nativeness or naturalness. However, these delineations have been critiqued as rooted in western, dualistic understandings of nature and culture that do not allow for other ways of conceptualising the world or for the agency of nonhumans. This paper argues for reconceptualising belonging as an ontological co-becoming where multiple contingent belongings co-emerge with bodies, worlds and place. To show how belonging co-becomes, I examine human–tree relations surrounding a special and sacred tree in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, Australia, the Angophora costata. I tell three stories that shed light on the multiple ways performances of belonging are entangled with histories, stories, spirits, and present and absent humans and nonhumans. In doing so, I show how belonging is a more-than-human practice where ideas of native and natural are questioned.