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Paper short abstract

Looking at two imaginaries of place - the post-War "lost territories of Germany, and an independent Scotland of the future - this paper, drawing on a toposophical approach, will explore factors that shape who is regarded as being from, and coming to, in specific contexts of place and belonging.

Paper long abstract

After a period when mobility and the resultant migration was widely hailed as a defining characteristic of the global marketplace, the acceleration in large-scale flight and expulsion through armed conflicts and natural disasters is leading to social and political discourses bringing issues of place and belonging into sharp relief.

Taking a close look at aspects of two challenging case studies - the German context of "Erinnerungskultur" in relation to post-War flight and expulsion with the subsequent imaginaries of "lost homelands", and an increasingly dis-United Kingdom with its emerging imaginaries of a future Scotland to be built by self-conscious dwelling in and on it - this paper will draw on a toposophical (=place wisdom) approach to explore factors that shape who is regarded as being from, and coming to, in specific contexts of place and belonging. It will examine how dwelling between tropes of 'self' and 'other' enables actors to transform different world versions into their individual and collective "Heimat".