Bedeutungen von Freiheiten und Sicherheiten

How naturally we talk about freedom and security. But what do we really mean by them? When we try to answer this question, it quickly becomes evident: both in the theoretical literature and in empirical reality there are many different interpretations. Against this background, the article puts forward the two-part thesis that it is necessary to differentiate between levels, manifestations and meanings of freedom and security, and to take into account the diverse interrelationships between freedoms and securities. This is illustrated with a focus on meanings at the micro level based on 17 interviews with parents of (almost) adult children. The analysis of the parental descriptions demonstrates both a diversity and dynamics of the meanings of freedom and security. It also shows that different freedoms and securities can grow and shrink at the same time. Experienced freedoms and securities tend to vary gradually rather than in a binary manner between the states of free/unfree and secure/unsecure. Additionally, clichéd phrases, references to common knowledge and patterns that can be reconstructed in the interviews reveal that ‘freedom’ and ‘security’ are socio-culturally preformed. Consequently, references to freedoms and securities fulfil numerous communicative functions, for example, in identity construction or self-positioning, and repeatedly reveal certain differences in meaning between mothers and fathers. All this underlines that it is not only epistemologically sensible to speak of freedoms and securities in the plural but that their empirical–ontological plurality and contextual sensitivity must also be recognised.