Belonging is an ambiguous concept that has tended to escape the rigorous theorization of other key concepts in geography. Rather than viewing this as a weakness, I turn to weak theory to consider belonging in generative ways, to reflect on the texture of how it is felt, used and practised. I particularly consider its emotional aspects and the ways it is performed by myriad humans and more-than-humans. I conclude with an ontological consideration. Understanding belonging as emergent co-becoming may allow for hopeful and inclusive geographies that are diversely care-ing and careful.

In this paper, we invite you night fishing for wäkun at Bawaka, an Indigenous homeland in North East Arnhem Land, Australia. As we hunt wäkun, we discuss our work as an Indigenous and non-Indigenous, human and more-than-human research collective trying to attend deeply to the messages we send and receive from, with and as a part of Country. The wäkun, and all the animals, plants, winds, processes, things, dreams and people that emerge together in nourishing, coconstitutive ways to create Bawaka Country, are the author-ity of our research. Our reflection is both methodological and ontological as we aim to attend deeply to Country and deliberate on what a Yolŋu ontology of co-becoming, that sees everything as knowledgeable, vital and interconnected, might mean for the way academics do research. We discuss a methodology of attending underpinned by a relational ethics of care. Here, care stems from an awareness of our essential co-constitution as we care for, and are cared for by, the myriad human and more-thanhuman becomings that emerge together to create Bawaka. We propose that practising relational research requires researchers to open themselves up to the reality of their connections with the world, and consider what it means to live as part of the world, rather than distinct from it. We end with a call to go beyond 'human' geography to embrace a more-than-human geography, a geography of co-becoming. Keywordsattending, ethics, geographies of care, Indigenous methodology, methodology, more-thanhuman, relational ontology cultural geographies 22 (2) Country communicates with us humans (and other more-than-humans), how it informs what we do and guides our thinking and doing. We do this by taking you night fishing -showing you how Bawaka communicates and in doing so shapes our methodology of attending and ethics of caring.

We invite readers to dig for ganguri (yams) at and with Bawaka, an Indigenous Homeland in northern Australia, and, in doing so, consider an Indigenous-led understanding of relational space/place. We draw on the concept of gurrutu to illustrate the limits of western ontologies, open up possibilities for other ways of thinking and theorizing, and give detail and depth to the notion of space/place as emergent co-becoming. With Bawaka as lead author, we look to Country for what it can teach us about how all views of space are situated, and for the insights it offers about co-becoming in a relational world.

Why belonging? Why geography?As we begin writing this guest editorial an e-mail alert informs us of a call for papers for the Social and Cultural Geography Study Group of the RGS-IBG for 2009 which seeks papers``interested in the way the world works to produce social and cultural difference, engaging with key social science debates concerning identity, subjectivity, citizenship and belonging.'' This e-mail is indicative of the growth of recent research in geography which draws on belonging as a key concept. Sometimes, belonging is at the centre of the analysis but, more often, it is used in a way that implies a common understanding of what belonging is and why belonging is important. Needless to say, no such common understanding exists. Indeed, with the proliferation of belonging in human geography come the inevitable questions: what is belonging, how does one belong, and, importantly, what work does belonging as a concept do? In the introduction to this theme issue on``Geographies of belonging'' we reflect on the notion of belonging, explore the work that belonging does in contemporary social science, particularly human geography, and outline the contributions of the theme issue.Belonging is mobilised in a range of spheres within human geography. Indeed, it is clearly possible to belong in many different ways at many different scales. Belonging has formal and informal aspects, implied, for example, by ideas of formal and informal citizenship and civic identity (

Recent work in ethnographic and qualitative methods highlights the limitations of academic accounts of research interactions that aim for total objectivity and authority. Efforts to move beyond totalizing accounts of both the research experience and the investigator raise questions of how to engage with, make sense of, and (re)present embodied, sensual, visceral, and the ultimately placed qualities of collaborative research interactions. Our response to this set of questions entailed recognizing and respecting the knowledge and agency of the human and non-human actors involved in co-producing the research. In this paper, we analyze transcripts, research notes and conversations between non-Indigenous academics, Indigenous researchers, and Bawaka, northern Australia itself to explore storytelling as a collaborative, more-than-human methodology. We argue that in research, storytelling consists of verbal, visual, physical, and sensual elements that inform dynamic and ongoing dialogues between humans (academics/co-researchers/family members), and between humans and non-humans (animals, water, wind). To move beyond the human/non-human binary in our storytelling, we look to Aboriginal Australian concepts of Country in which place is relationally defined and continually co-created by both human and non-human agents. . Acknowledging and engaging with the embodied, more-than-human nature of research contributes to an enlarged understanding of how knowledge is co-produced, experienced, and storied.