"Heimat" and globalization (local and regional environments against the folkloristic background)

This essay had its origins in a Viennese colloquium held in honour of the m emory of Helmut Fielhauer, and begins with Fielhauer's ideas about which ta sks a "Heimat", of homeland or native place, may no longer be defensible in its long-cherished sense of a sentimentally-coloured folkloristic backdrop to life. The notion should rather be replaced by a comprehensible and sobe r concept of home and place of the kind found in the existential expression of what "longing for home" means. After all, the internationalization of l ife circumstances has not meant a severing of all ties to "Heimat" but has instead, at least in part, led to a new emphasis on local and regional envi ronments.