Quandaries of Belonging

It is said that inside each person is the universe. Jackson’s book is a stunning illustration of this. Narrating the self and the places integral to his own making, he reaches out and grasps a shared humanity that strives to comprehend a poetics of fit in the world'. — Amanda Kearney, Professor of Anthropology and Indigenous Studies at Flinders University and author of Violence in Place, Environmental and Cultural Wounding

The catchment of Michael Jackson’s meditation upon home, identity and ‘the mysterious elsewhere’ is wide—in terms of both place and time—yet his attention is always precise and finely tuned to patterns of thinking and living. Quandaries of Belonging is a paean to evolving consciousness and a rejection of the notion of ‘firstness or the idea that foundations are necessarily more real than anything we built on them’. He is a student of conversation, interaction and growth, of the life-as-lived, rendered with an often novelistic or poetic elan. — Gregory O’Brien, author of 'Always song in the water' (Auckland University Press, 2019)

In Quandaries of Belonging Michael Jackson brings an astute blend of anecdote, characterisation, history, philosophy and reminiscence to bear upon two great questions of our time: where is our home and how shall we know it? Jackson’s thought is elegant and persuasive; but never prescriptive. This is a book all New Zealanders, and everyone else too, should read. — Martin Edmond author of 'Luca Antara' and 'The Expatriates'

“Michael Jackson's experience of living abroad yet longing for home invites New Zealanders, not just expatriates, to consider the ways we are all at home in the world. Current tensions and bi-cultural issues within Aotearoa New Zealand are discussed with urgency, yet Jackson thinks globally and writes with poignant empathy.” — Jennifer Shennan, Author of 'The Māori Action Song - waiata-ā-ringa, waiata kõri - nõ whea tēnei āhua hou?