Doing Heimat - The Role of Imaginations, Practices and Emotions in Saxony, 1969-2000.
Final Report Abstract
The project investigated how various actors translated ideas and conceptions of Heimat into forms of action in the late GDR and the first decade of the transformation phase (1969-2000) in Saxony. The initial hypothesis was that the term Heimat itself was not defined, but was open as an empty signifier to diverse attributions of meaning and therefore enabled very different, sometimes contradictory ideas of Heimat. What all ideas of Heimat and discourses on Heimat have in common, however, is that they imagined community, placed it in a spatial relationship and projected a stable future for it. These ideas gained social relevance on the one hand by being formulated in discourses, but above all by being translated into social practice on the other. It was only in the everyday routine, in the repeated production and appropriation of Heimat in practices that the discourses acquired their relevance in the reality. It is only in the realization of practices that the socially constitutive effects of ideas of home can be observed. For this reason, the project investigated five different Heimat practices, always asking how they translated discourse into action and at the same time acted out emotions. This question is of great analytical value for Saxony in the period under investigation, as numerous actors have prominently represented the discourse on Heimat in Saxony since the 19th century. In the GDR, the socialist discourse on Heimat was of particular importance, as the Socialist Unity Party (SED) of Germany wanted to integrate society and create identification with the socialist state via concepts of Heimat. It served as a universal lever for raising political awareness and commitment to the social project in equal measure. For this reason, everyone in the GDR had to engage with the socialist discourse on Heimat and act accordingly in their Heimat activities. After the end of the GDR, this fixation of ideas of Heimat on socialism dissolved again, and Heimat once again served in many ways to articulate experiences of change and transformation shock in decided ideas of stability and community. Analyzing practices as diverse as writing local chronicles, going hiking, helping to design new neighbourhoods, exercising violence and remembering the ‘old town’, the project investigated how Heimat was integrated into everyday activities, how the actors related to the socialist discourse on Heimat before 1989 or which individual forms of action they developed, how they brought their living environment into harmony with the norms of the SED regime and at the same time integrated and realized their own ideas of Heimat and which changes in the practices brought about by the revolutionary upheaval and the state unification of 1990. The last question in particular made it possible to evaluate the power effects of the SED dictatorship, as this made it possible to assess how lasting their impact was on people's everyday routines.
Publications
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Heimat - Versuche in der Moderne Halt zu finden, in: Saxorum. Blog für interdisziplinäre Landeskunde in Sachsen
Johannes Schütz, Antje Reppe & Henrik Schwanitz
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Polyphonie der Heimat – oder: Eine praxistheoretische und emotionshistorische Untersuchung von Heimatkonstruktionen in Sachsen, 1969-2000, in: Saxorum. Blog für interdisziplinäre Landeskunde in Sachsen
Johannes Schütz
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Heimat DDR. Die DDR-Führung verordnete Liebe zum sozialistischen Vaterland, die Menschen aber hatten ein durchaus eigensinniges Verhältnis zu ihrer Heimat, in: Damals 5, S. 45-46.
Johannes Schütz
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Heimatkonstruktionen in historischer Perspektive: Heimatpraktiken im Übergang von der DDR zur vereinigten Bundesrepublik, in: Saxorum. Blog für interdisziplinäre Landeskunde in Sachsen
Johannes Schütz
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Wenn Heimat Angst macht. „Gewalt der Vereinigung“ in biografischen Erzählungen, in: Zeitgeschichte-online, Mai
Johannes Schütz
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„Heimat-Liebe“ in der DDR. Beobachtungen zu Diskursformationen, Gefühlsregimen und Emotionspraktiken. Volkskunde in Sachsen. Jahrbuch für Kulturanthropologie, 33, 181-202.
Schütz, Johannes
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Home is where the people rules! : the idea of socialist Heimat and its emotional regime in the GDR. Studia historica Brunensia(1), 195-212.
Schütz, Johannes
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Rassistische Gewalt in der späten DDR. Ereignisketten und soziale Kontexte an einem Beispiel aus Sachsen, in: Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 63, S. 173–191.
Johannes Schütz
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Beleidigungen, Schmähungen, Angriffe. Invektive Dynamiken und rassistische Gewalt in der späten DDR, in: S. Fehlemann, H. Greschke, K. Kanzler, G. Schwerhoff (Hg.), An den Grenzen der Invektivität. Herabsetzungspotentiale von Humor, Kritik und Gewalt, Frankfurt, S. 241-258.
Johannes Schütz
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Erinnern an das „alte Dresden“ als bürgerliche Praktik. Praxishistorische Überlegungen und empirische Befunde. Bürgerlichkeit in Diktaturen, 221-240. Metropol Verlag.
Schütz, Johannes
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Heimat, History, and Identity. German Politics and Society, 42(4), 65-82.
Schütz, Johannes
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Introduction. German Politics and Society, 42(4), 1-14.
Rau, Christian & Schütz, Johannes
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Landesgeschichte – Regionalgeschichte – Heimatgeschichte. Das Spannungsfeld laienhistorischer Forschungen in der DDR, in: O. Auge, M. Hecht, C. Hoffarth (Hg.), Jenseits von Ideologie und Borniertheit. Zum Verhältnis von Landesgeschichte und Heimatgeschichte (19. bis 21. Jahrhundert), Landesgeschichtliche Beiträge 3, Halle, S.77-90.
Johannes Schütz
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Ostdeutsche Heimat und ostdeutsche Identität. Berliner Debatte Initial, 36(1), 23-33.
Schütz, Johannes
