Sunday, March 16, 2014
Embassy (Omni Shoreham)
The notion of Heimat (homeland) and belonging has been one of the most striking phenomena of the modern German state. Today, the German national character (and its legitimacy) asserts itself not only through the disposition of Germans to believe and identify with its ideals, but also through the resurrection of concept of Heimat in German discourse. Heimat conveys an array of cultural and ideological connotations and merges notions of belonging and identity with affective attachments to a specific place. This paper examines the Refugee Center Marienfelde in Berlin and argues that, as a site where past and present historical events lie in heterotopic juxtaposition, the center functions both as a non-place, as it museumfies past historical experiences of East German refugees (Übersiedler), and as a non-homogenized space of mediation and transition for asylum seekers, which exists on the outskirts, or fringes, of the polis—or the ideal city state. This heterotopian space, furthermore, (re)constructs and reinforces a nostalgic ideological narrative of Heimat that then culturally and politically defines the heimatlose (refugee) subject in Germany. The center furthermore institutes fragments of a German Erinnerungskultur (culture of remembrance) and raises questions about Germany’s asylum laws within the global political and cultural spheres of Europe.
