德國的Heimat與中國的鄉土

在回憶中尋找人與社群、人與土地的關係，我稱這種親密感為鄉土。不過，對於「鄉土」的理解必須置於當代的社會和文化脈絡之中，所以，我尋找的，是回憶中的鄉土與當代社會的對話。透過回憶，我們對現代生活產生了批判意識。啊！原來幾十年前的人並不如我這樣子生活，他們（是的，與我們不同的「他們」，「他們」的出現，代表了歷史意識的覺醒）好像認識整個社區的人（今日訪談後，學生如此感嘆），「我們」食飯先出廳，「他們」瞓覺才入房（家庭生活不是社群生活的寫照嗎？）。交通和科技的發展，令生活方式出現了斷裂，「他們」與「我們」隔著不可逾越的鴻溝，他們訴說回憶，我們聆聽回憶，於是搭起了一道橋（主體間性的理解？）。

Heimat literature was one aspect of a great variety of activities and institutions - in part reactionary, in part practically reformist, in part idealistically utopian - which have sometimes been drawn together under the umbrella title of the 'Heimatbewegung' or Heimat movement and which can be seen as responses to Germany's rapid modernization. By no means ideologically homogeneous, the Heimat movement embraced activities stretching from environmental planning and countryside protection, though local history societies, museums documenting local customs and costumes, tourist guidebooks, geography textbooks and syllabuses for primary schoolchildren, to local rambling and sports clubs and folk festivals and touched too on such developments as the German garden city movement and even city allotments. Much of this acitivity was comparable to what would now be called Burgerinitiativen or citizens' initiatives to sustain the quality of life in a locality and like such present-day activism was politically diverse. Key oppositions in the discourse of Heimat set country against city, province agsinst metropolis, tradtion against modernity, nature against artificiality, organic culture against civilization, fixed, familiar, rooted identity against comsomopolitanism, hybridity, alien otherness, or the faceless mass. (p. 2)

所以，我很喜歡以下對鄉土的定義：Frame of mind，心靈構圖。鄉土是一幅心靈構圖，教育也是和學生一起塑造這幅心靈構圖。

Heimat is not a pre-existing heritage, but must be constantly produced and appropriated by the individual...Heimat is not a fixed, static place, but rather a social space which must be constantly adapted or recreated, through individual effort...Heimat ceases to be conceived either as the place of origin or a utopian place of arrival, becoming instead a frame of mind: the commitment of citizens to the process of making a liveable social space. Man may be territorial, but the territory keeps changing (p. 194)

歷史課程中的鄉土，是強調源頭的、先天的，但這樣對鄉土的理解，必然會消解自身，因為現代生活的流動性令所有人變得「無鄉可歸」。因此，鄉土作為心靈構圖，卻能回應時代的無根性。

if Heimat, supposedly the uniqe place of origin, can be multiplied, then the outcome may indeed be 'keine', a negation of the concept. But if Heimat is a aframe of mind inducing an active relationship between human beings and their environment, then multiplication may salvage values worth retaining in an age of more rapid change and greater mobility than ever before. (p. 195)

Heimat values are what make places and peoples different in contrast to the perceived homogenizing tendencies of moderntiy. At the same time Heimat discourse butresses group identity. This interplay of identity and difference can take on many political shades depending on the historical context. (p. 204)

Place is a primary factor both in the narrator's growing sense of identity and its ultimate collapse. For the places are also social spaces infused with historical meaning. (p. 207)

--Elizabeth Bao and Rachel Palfreyman, Heimat: A German Dream: Regional loyalties and national identity in German Culture 1890-1990. New York: Oxford University Press.