Barbara Knorpp
Research area
In her PhD research Barbara studied representations of the German term Heimat (engl. homeland, belonging, roots, nostalgia) in contemporary post-wall Germany on community level, especially in terms of narrativity. Based on an ethnographic study of her own home village near Cologne, she aims to explore the idea of anthropology at home. The notion of Heimat is closely linked to modernity and utopia, environmental issues, national identity, as well as local history. The project is accompanied by a short documentary film shot between 1999 and 2006.
Research Interests
Anthropology, film, photography, art, architecture, critical theory
Expertise
Anthropology, identity, media audiences, everyday, art history, cinema, photography
Synopsis
The Heimat Project is an anthropological study of the notion of Heimat, which focuses on a small village at the outskirts of Cologne, Barbara Knorpp's own home village, in the western part of Germany. The village with a character of a satellite village lies in proximity to the city of Cologne and it has approximately 4000 inhabitants. Cologne is part of the Rhineland, an area with spectacular landscapes, renowned for its romantic mountains and medieval castles along the river Rhine on the one hand and highly industrialized sites on the other. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, opencast brown coal mining has a dominant presence in the area around the village, which led to the destruction of one half of the village in the 1950s.
Anthropology has traditionally studied the non-western world. However, in recent years ethnographers have worked increasingly in industrialized countries and urban contexts, which bore the fields of European anthropology and urban anthropology. Such studies have been mostly situated within traditional subjects areas such as 'honor and shame' in Mediterranean culture, questions of identity and minority culture, while relatively little has been said about Central Europe. This thesis aims to scrutinize that and to develop further insights into the notion of Heimat in post reunification Germany. Although one would imagine the events surrounding the reunification in autumn 1989 to affect the notion of Heimat considerably, as in the past Heimat and nation were often perceived as congruent, one finds that the relationship between state and Heimat in contemporary Germany is only tangential.
The Heimat project looks at a local community where people see themselves as country dwellers, although everyday life in the village has characteristics of a suburban life. Increasing homogeneity of places and the breakdown of cultural boundaries between urban and rural areas has lead to what one may call 'periphery culture', which is neither urban nor rural. Again, while notions of space and place have gained growing attention by social scientists, anthropologists have shown only limited interest into issues around landscape and belonging in industrialized countries. The Heimat project aims to broaden this scope by bringing in questions of belonging and everyday life in relation to the periphery.
Asking what happens to people's sense of Heimat after the reunification of East and West Germany in 1989 in a small village, this thesis will explore the term Heimat from a strictly localized, thus inductive, perspective.
The notion of Heimat cannot be explained without its various historical articulations and its embedment into politics of landscape, modernization, identity, and resistance. The notion of Heimat inspired a whole range of novels (Heimatroman or 'Heimat novel') and films (Heimatfilm or 'Heimat film'), which provide other dimensions to the understanding of the term Heimat.
In the past, from around the eleventh century Heimat simply meant house or yard. During Romanticism Heimat stood for longing for a united German nation and later conveniently served nationalism and subsequently, Fascist ideology. With the advent of industrialization, Heimat became commonly equated with a sense of reactionary anti-modernism and celebration of provincial life and culture.
Until today, the notion of Heimat moves between reactionary conservative values and progressive utopian ideals.
Education
1999-2007
MPhil/PhD University of Westminster (Scholarship University of Westminster)
1993-1994
MA Social Anthropology, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London
1992-1993
Erasmus Scholarship for SOAS, University of London
1988-1992
BA Social Anthropology, Theatre, Film and TV studies, Art History, University of Cologne, Germany
Employment History
1999-2007
Visiting Lecturer in BA Media Studies, BA Film and Television Studies and MA Communication, University of Westminster, London
2006
Visiting Lecturer, Kingston University, Media and Cultural Studies
2003-2004
Guest Lectures at University of the Arts, London
1996-1998
Production Assistant at Rex Features, International Photo Press Agency, London
1996
Researcher at Faculty of Design and Performing Art, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, Australia
1994-1996
Curator of art exhibitions in London and Japan
1994
Editor for Amnesty International UK video production on police torture in Pakistan
1988-1992
Public Relations Assistant in WDR (West German Broadcasting), Cologne, Germany
1991
Short film “The Director” b/w 16-mm, directed by Kawe Vagil, Cologne, Germany
1990
Assistant in Art Department for Peter Greenaway’s film “Baby of Macon”, Cologne, Germany
Selected Conference Papers
2002-6
'The Heimat project', Symposia (CREAM/ CAMRI) for PhD Students, in conjunction with Royal College of Art and Design (RCA), Goldsmith College, London School of Economics (LSE), held at University of Westminster
2000
'Heimat and the everyday', Media and Experiences of Everyday Life, Turku, Finland
2001
'Heimat and narrative', ASCA (Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis) Travelling Concepts III Narrative, Netherlands
2002
'The Heimat project', European Summer School, University of Westminster
Publications
Article on Edgar Reitz's Heimat 3 in 'Global Media and Communication' (April 2007).
Book Review 'Cinema and Memory' Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, Vol. 2 (2005)
Contributions of articles include Journal Notes (Spring 2001), Distance (Japanese art exhibition catalogue, 1996).
'Die Staat is arm, aber die Leute sind reich', In: Stadtmosaik:Beiträge zur ethnologischen Stadtforschung, aus einer Feldexkursion nach Thessaloniki. Waldtraut Kokot (ed.) Bonn: Holos
[article on consumption, urban anthropology project, Greece 1990]
Languages
German, English, Intermediate French, Japanese, Spanish, Greek
Other
Married, two daughters
Contact details
E-mail: knorppb@westminster.ac.uk
