Abstract

'Heimat' is booming to a degree that can rightly be called a renaissance. Noticeable is not only the variety of claims to "readjust" and "reframe" the concept, but its role within a conservative attempt to recalibrate societal conditions as well as the circumstances of the humanities and cultural studies. The 'not-newness' of the expression, thus, forms the core of an attitude of enlightenment and rehabilitation which attempts to rearticulate 'Heimat' in order to affirm a sense of 'natural' belonging, whether on a local, regional or global scale. In view of a global debate about experiences of precarity and insecurity towards the future, the return to strate-gies of naturalization and embeddedness may not be all too surprising, but from a cultural studies perspective it is no less unsettling. It is by no means a harmless reactivation of tradi-tion(s), but unveils a will to naturalization whose normative force must not be underestimated. The current political climate calls for the cultural studies to observe and describe 'Heimat' using methods and media to analyze and account for its normative implications. However, this examination can only show the desired effects if it makes transparent its own conditions and strategies. This special issue on "precarious Heimat" assembles disruptions of 'natural' belonging and inquires after the techniques, the places, the discourses and actors of this particular way of producing human-nature-relationships and reality. In their opening essay, Solvejg Nitzke and Lars Koch discuss the objectives and failures of 'Heimat' as a device of renormali-zation and disruption management, thus opening the floor for a collection of 'Heimat'-analyses, which spans dinosaurs, primordial humans and extraterrestrial beings; covers Germany, Austria, France, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Senegal and the United States of America and even a view of the whole Earth.