Background
A renewed interest in the theology of place has moved away from narrower preoccupations with sacred space to a wider engagement with ideas of how people of faith belong in the world, and what the particularities of geography have to do with redemption. In such a light, belonging is about mutual entanglements of necessity and freedom that are negotiated by people in place.
Meanwhile, research by landscape ecologists has shown how difficult it is for current planning processes in the UK to incorporate multifunctional notions of place that integrate social and economic concerns with wider understandings of environment and culture. In particular, interpretations of place and belonging in the regeneration of post-industrial landscapes are very material and shallow. Securing the Future (as the UK government calls sustainability) takes little account of the often contested histories of places, and the price people have paid to live their lives there.
Similar concerns about the principles and realities of regeneration and sustainability have been raised in Germany where the term which expresses belonging is Heimat. The original meaning of this word is home ground but over a millennium it has acquired a rich variety of resonances and, after its suborning by National Socialist ideology, is now attracting a new and wide interest, not only in the environmental realm but also in arts like film, theatre and literature.
Heimat is fundamentally about who you are and where you belong, is a place where you know who you are and that you belong there. There is often a measure of reciprocal gift and acceptance between person and place and more recent German interpretations favour a more dynamic perspective, such that Heimat can be permanently appropriated in a way that articulates social change. This circle of thinking has recently been completed by theological reflection on Beheimatung as an essential process in social construction, the planning process and the salvation of built environments.