What does a family look like today? What can terms like ›origin‹, ›native country‹ and ›home‹ mean in a globalised world? With which new meanings can they be filled? Western societies live in an equal state of fear and activism. Fear is taking root across Europe, reactionary parties are growing in strength, right-wing populism, chauvinism and xenophobia are flourishing. Proponents of simplistic world views are on the up. Hard-fought-for achievements are suddenly being brought into question: the EU is being demonised, the fourth estate defamed as the »gutter press«, sexual and cultural differences are being attacked and what it means to be a man, a woman or a family is being defined in the most one- dimensional terms. In the struggle for gender equality, the institution of marriage in particular is becoming symbolically charged and romanticised by those who defend it as a privilege which is to be denied to certain social groups. A conservative ideal image of a way of life is being conjured up in order to discriminate and socially marginalise. At the same time traditional, normative definitions of belonging, nationality, religion, language, culture, gender and sexual identity seem to be being increasingly abandoned and individually redefined.