I’m doing many of your suggested remedies to connect to place; and can say it works somewhat differently in the Northwest ( what we call Cascadia ). That said- what has cemented me more radically to place is a Polynesian sport -outrigger canoeing. I am outside four times per week in variable weather patterns with people I did not select for a 90 minute encounter with the elements in a tippy canoe. You build up an intimacy based on trust and know the people you are ‘benched’ with in all their strengths and weaknesses which builds confidence in the whole. There is nothing that cements trust better than risking a winter capsize.
Congratulations on a beautifully researched and written piece. I plan to send it on to my neice in Chicago who is trying to set down roots without a playbook.
That sounds amazing Suzanne. These are all the ingredients we need - an embodied experience with people (beyond our bubble) that puts us in touch with the elements. Love it!
This post hit me right in the chest. I’ve been grappling with that same paradox—yearning for rootedness while living in a digital, mobile world that rewards detachment. Your framing of bioregioning as a healing antidote—not just to nationalism, but to disorientation itself—feels like a breath of fresh air. The Spencer R. Scott quote about the untethered becoming the “losers of the next system” stayed with me. It’s a powerful reframe: resilience as relationship.
Also, thank you for giving space to the nuance. Longing for ‘heimat’ doesn’t have to mean glorifying borders. It can mean deep care for place. Reverence. Presence. That last question—what would a bioregional internet look like?—gave me chills. Please write that post.
I felt very touched. I migrated from my "homeland", Aragón, because I thought I didn´t owe it a thing. I lived in Graz for almost 4 years and, although I didn´t know if it was going to be forever, I made the effort to learn the language super fast, and get involved in the local affairs -you can notice my stierisch if I have the chance to speak in German. I never learned Hochdeutsch.
A place so full of inner and international migrants, and it couldn´t hold me in it. I couldn´t stand the proud displays of "Styrianness" over a couple of staples: the Schilcher and the Kürbiskernöl. Getting drunk on Schilcher wearing the Dindrl: top of the tops. Once I imagined: what if I find a partner and I have a kid in this place, who is this person going to be as an Austrian?
In a place with such a mixture of origins: Syrians, Croats, Afghans, Romanians, Lebanese, you name it! the "national" Styrian traditions looked to me like Spanish Franco´s attempts to give regions a fancy dress (like the Andalucian flamenco dotted dress, still a fav among tourists) to hide your true identity. It felt like a fabricated Sissy-times legacy.
What´s really like to being Styrian - or Austrian?
I am relieved to read about what being Austrian, and connecting to Austria as Heimat, is like in your family. I was starting to lose hope in the country...
Now I am settled in one of the EU countries from which all the cheap labour immigrants come from: Bulgaria. I find incredible how many Bulgarians who stay or return do it with a mission and determination. I remember my friend Mehmed telling me "yes I could go and live in Germany, get good money, but didn´t Germans fixed their own country to look that nice? When are we going to fix Bulgaria?"
I loved your ideas to connect with a place!
Offer help.
I am definitely going to do this one more.
I also thought now of joining a local platform advocating for improvements. It can be something like improving a bus line or denouncing potholes. Send emails with complaints to the municipality.
Notice the non-human beings.
You made me realize that, here where I live, there are SO many things to fix, but there´s something I would terribly miss if I ever move out: all these trees on the streets. All the birds.
Thank you Victoria for sharing your experience. I get it, the holding on to traditions (of a certain kind) can sometimes feel a bit claustrophobic in Austria. There’s obviously different scenes you can be part of, and that will massively shape your perception. I always found Graz quite open-minded. I think there is also a conscious push to look beyond the pastiches and explore history and regional legacy in more nuance. The HochSommer comes to mind, a cross-border contemporary art festival in Styria / Slovenia. https://www.hochsommer.art/start
This essay hit a deep nerve. I’ve felt that ache for “heimat”—not in the nationalist sense, but in the quiet longing to feel woven into the fabric of a specific place, with its stories, its soil, its rhythm. Your framing of bioregioning as both resistance and reconnection is powerful—an antidote to the digital drift and rootlessness so many of us feel. Especially loved this line: “The untethered are the losers of the next system.” It reframes rootedness not as nostalgia, but as resilience. Thank you for articulating what so many of us have only sensed but not yet named.
I’m doing many of your suggested remedies to connect to place; and can say it works somewhat differently in the Northwest ( what we call Cascadia ). That said- what has cemented me more radically to place is a Polynesian sport -outrigger canoeing. I am outside four times per week in variable weather patterns with people I did not select for a 90 minute encounter with the elements in a tippy canoe. You build up an intimacy based on trust and know the people you are ‘benched’ with in all their strengths and weaknesses which builds confidence in the whole. There is nothing that cements trust better than risking a winter capsize.
Congratulations on a beautifully researched and written piece. I plan to send it on to my neice in Chicago who is trying to set down roots without a playbook.
That sounds amazing Suzanne. These are all the ingredients we need - an embodied experience with people (beyond our bubble) that puts us in touch with the elements. Love it!
This post hit me right in the chest. I’ve been grappling with that same paradox—yearning for rootedness while living in a digital, mobile world that rewards detachment. Your framing of bioregioning as a healing antidote—not just to nationalism, but to disorientation itself—feels like a breath of fresh air. The Spencer R. Scott quote about the untethered becoming the “losers of the next system” stayed with me. It’s a powerful reframe: resilience as relationship.
Also, thank you for giving space to the nuance. Longing for ‘heimat’ doesn’t have to mean glorifying borders. It can mean deep care for place. Reverence. Presence. That last question—what would a bioregional internet look like?—gave me chills. Please write that post.
I love this so damn much thank you Karen
Than you for this, Karen!
I felt very touched. I migrated from my "homeland", Aragón, because I thought I didn´t owe it a thing. I lived in Graz for almost 4 years and, although I didn´t know if it was going to be forever, I made the effort to learn the language super fast, and get involved in the local affairs -you can notice my stierisch if I have the chance to speak in German. I never learned Hochdeutsch.
A place so full of inner and international migrants, and it couldn´t hold me in it. I couldn´t stand the proud displays of "Styrianness" over a couple of staples: the Schilcher and the Kürbiskernöl. Getting drunk on Schilcher wearing the Dindrl: top of the tops. Once I imagined: what if I find a partner and I have a kid in this place, who is this person going to be as an Austrian?
In a place with such a mixture of origins: Syrians, Croats, Afghans, Romanians, Lebanese, you name it! the "national" Styrian traditions looked to me like Spanish Franco´s attempts to give regions a fancy dress (like the Andalucian flamenco dotted dress, still a fav among tourists) to hide your true identity. It felt like a fabricated Sissy-times legacy.
What´s really like to being Styrian - or Austrian?
I am relieved to read about what being Austrian, and connecting to Austria as Heimat, is like in your family. I was starting to lose hope in the country...
Now I am settled in one of the EU countries from which all the cheap labour immigrants come from: Bulgaria. I find incredible how many Bulgarians who stay or return do it with a mission and determination. I remember my friend Mehmed telling me "yes I could go and live in Germany, get good money, but didn´t Germans fixed their own country to look that nice? When are we going to fix Bulgaria?"
I loved your ideas to connect with a place!
Offer help.
I am definitely going to do this one more.
I also thought now of joining a local platform advocating for improvements. It can be something like improving a bus line or denouncing potholes. Send emails with complaints to the municipality.
Notice the non-human beings.
You made me realize that, here where I live, there are SO many things to fix, but there´s something I would terribly miss if I ever move out: all these trees on the streets. All the birds.
Thank you again!
Thank you Victoria for sharing your experience. I get it, the holding on to traditions (of a certain kind) can sometimes feel a bit claustrophobic in Austria. There’s obviously different scenes you can be part of, and that will massively shape your perception. I always found Graz quite open-minded. I think there is also a conscious push to look beyond the pastiches and explore history and regional legacy in more nuance. The HochSommer comes to mind, a cross-border contemporary art festival in Styria / Slovenia. https://www.hochsommer.art/start
This essay hit a deep nerve. I’ve felt that ache for “heimat”—not in the nationalist sense, but in the quiet longing to feel woven into the fabric of a specific place, with its stories, its soil, its rhythm. Your framing of bioregioning as both resistance and reconnection is powerful—an antidote to the digital drift and rootlessness so many of us feel. Especially loved this line: “The untethered are the losers of the next system.” It reframes rootedness not as nostalgia, but as resilience. Thank you for articulating what so many of us have only sensed but not yet named.