Heimat

Heimat (ˈhaɪmat) is a German word translating to 'home' or 'homeland'. The word has connotations specific to German culture, German society and specifically German Romanticism, German nationalism, German statehood and regionalism so that it has no exact English equivalent. There is no single definition for the term "heimat". Bausinger describes it as a spatial and social unit of medium range, wherein the individual is able to experience safety and the reliability of its existence, as well as a place of a deeper trust: Heimat als Nahwelt, die verständlich und durchschaubar ist, als Rahmen, in dem sich Verhaltenserwartungen stabilisieren, in dem sinnvolles, abschätzbares Handeln möglich ist – Heimat also als Gegensatz zu Fremdheit und Entfremdung, als Bereich der Aneignung, der aktiven Durchdringung, der Verlässlichkeit. Home functions as the close environment that is understandable and transparent, as a frame, in which behavioral expectations are met, in which reasonable, expectable actions are possible – in contrast to foreignness and alienation, as a sector of appropriation, of active saturation, of reliability. Greverus (1979) focuses especially on the concept of identity. To him, "heimat" is an "idyllic world" and can only be found within the trinity of community, space and tradition; because only there human desires for identity, safety and an active designing of life can be pleased. In any case "heimat", or even better: the examination thereof, is one of several identification sectors creating self-awareness. In terms of ethnology and anthropology, "heimat" reflects the need for spatial orientation and the first "territory" that can offer identity, stimulation and safety for one's own existence (Paul Leyhausen). From an existentially philosophical perspective, home provides the individual with a spatiotemporal orientation for self-preparation, in opposition to the term of strangeness (Otto Friedrich Bollnow). In terms of sociology, home belongs to the constitutional conditions for group identity in complementarity to strangeness (Georg Simmel).