The twentieth century has been characterized as the age of the dispossessed. Whilst great population upheavals can be traced back to the Middle Ages, indeed back to pre-classical civilization, modern movements are different. In the twentieth century, for various reasons (such as the rise of totalitarianism and technology), population upheavals have been large-scale, recurrent events throughout the world. The growth of the media and of the ease of access to information mean that, especially in the West, documentation of such events has also occurred on an unprecedented scale.

Movement is a fundamental historical concept. Change of place is as important an archetype to history as the change of the generations. Prehistory is written in terms of racial movements over the globe; and war, crusade and pilgrimage are studied to further understanding of medieval Europe. For the individual, movement provides a sense of difference between the past and the present. This difference is more than merely temporal, but it is ghostly, in the sense that the past homeland remains as a ghostly image behind the eye, through which the new land is seen. This discussion is concerned with the effect of displacement on the individual and ideas of nationality. Of the autobiographers discussed here, none was born in Australia.