The importance of the frontier in shaping northern Australia continues to arouse interest and debate among scholars. This paper contributes to this scholarship through the exploration of the mutual constitution of frontier and belonging in suburban backyards in Australia's urban north. The focus of the paper is the angry and indignant resistance to the introduction of mandatory pool fencing in the Northern Territory in 2002–04. Adopting an attitude of ‘witnessing’ small and ordinary happenings, I explore the spontaneous outbursts of identity and belonging expressed by antifence residents of Darwin, with particular emphasis on their creative enactment of frontier tropes of freedom, vigilance, risk, and self-reliance in defence of unfenced pools. By exploring an apparently ordinary event I reflect on the unconscious, subtle, and pervasive reach of the frontier in shaping performances of belonging in the urban north.
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