Dörflichkeit? Theoretische und empirische Reflexionen über einen heterodoxen Begriff

Novel scientific knowledge results from the antagonism of orthodox and broad accepted knowledge, on one hand and new ideas, methods, etc. on the other. Villageness represents a heterodox concept, which could be used for changing the research perspectives on the characteristics of social life in villages. This concept overcomes the well-established but more and more inadequate use of classical differentiating notions like urban and rural, society and community, public and private, modernity and tradition (like Simmel, Tönnies, Bahrdt). Looking at the history of these differentiating notions one sees that they have not yet been introduced for analyzing sociality in villages but for categorizing fundamental social differences. These theoretical aspects are treated in the first part of the article; the second part explores what villageness means empirically, esp. with regards to knowing each other, helping each other and integrating new residents. One important result of the empirical analysis is that villageness is not characterized by a social unit or by social uniformity but by varied levels of sociality which consist of distinct forms and manifestations of belonging to a certain village.