Different Europes The Historical Evolution Of Territorial Identities And Attachments As Formative Forces In A Changing Europe

This volume adopts a multidisciplinary and novel approach to the historical evolution of identities in Europe -- especially the identities that are connected with regions as pluralist, processual social constructs, serving in dialogue and/or conflict with the emerging nation-state. Here history, anthropology, human geography and cultural sciences meet to discuss how regionalizing identities of various kinds were continuously created, challenged, and redefined, how they were experienced and expressed, and to what extent they produced feelings of attachment. Spatial, social, cultural and political foundations and manifestations of identities in Europe are historical phenomena. Their changes and forms can help us to understand essential traits of European societies in time and space, including the development of differences and similarities, degrees of attachment and the dynamics of physical and mental borders. By drawing on a wide range of sources -- from historiography to interviews, devotional and hagiographical texts to pamphlets, songs and architecture -- as expressions of evolving identities, this volume presents an innovative approach to understanding identity formation in Europe as an historical force, using the region as a multi-layered and processual key concept.

Making sense of the perplexing diversity of Europe is a challenging task. How compatible are national identities in Europe? What makes Europe European? What do Europeans have in common? European National Identities explores the diversity of European states, nations, and peoples. In doing so, the editors focus on the origins and elements of different national identities in Europe and different themes of national self-understanding. Each chapter contributes a unique view of national identities gravitating around myth, historical experiences and traumas, values, ethnic and linguistic differences, and religious fault lines. This work grounds European national identities within cultural, historical, and political dynamics, which makes the work approachable for many readers, including historians, sociologists, and political scientists. In addition, the editors illustrate that national identities continue to be a source of contention and a challenge to political developments, the demands of immigrants and minorities, and the dynamics of European integration. This book draws particular attention to identity shifts and conflicts within individual European countries.

In The Background Of New Questions Of Identity, Culture And Community Emerged After Maastricht Treaty This Book Explores The European Integration Process Since It Throws Immanent Challenge To The Existing Theoretical Paradigms Such As Nationalism And Globalization . Drawing Influence From This Intellectual Climate, This Book Tries To Understand The Integration Process Within The Cultural History Of Europe.The Study Structured Itself Along Three Axes: First, It Circled Down On The Problematic Over Defining What Europe Means; Here The Efforts Were On To Highlight The Constant Flux And Contingent Nature Of The Definition Of Europe. Second, How This Contingent Nature Of Europe Has Compelled The European Union To No Longer Skirt Away The Question Of Identity If It Is To Consolidate The Process And Expand Its Boundary Towards East. By Focusing Upon The Cultural Policy Of The Union, The Study Brought Forth The Various Efforts Of The Union, Particularly The European Commission To Transform The Loyalties And Identities Of People From The National Crucible To A Broader European Spectrum. Thirdly, The Study Critically Evaluates These Policy Initiatives And Highlights How They Are Structured Around The Nineteenth Century Colonial Discourse Of Europe.

In cultural and intellectual terms, one of the EU’s most important objectives in pursuing unification has been to develop a common historical narrative of Europe. Across ten compelling case studies, this volume examines the premises underlying such a project to ask: Could such an uncontested history of Europe ever exist? Combining studies of national politics, supranational institutions, and the fraught EU-Mideast periphery with a particular focus on the twentieth century, the contributors to History and Belonging offer a fascinating survey of the attempt to forge a post-national identity politics.

This clear and accessible textbook provides an introduction to the key issues now shaping the new Europe and its citizens.

Dimensions of Heritage and Memory is a landmark contribution on the politics of the past in Europe today. The book explores the meanings of heritage in a time of crisis, when the past permeates social and political divisions, identity contests and official projects to forge a European community. Providing an overview of the literature and an analysis of the assumptions, values and philosophies embedded within European-level policy, the book explores different dimensions of heritage and memory, from official sites, museums and policy, to party politics, historical re-enactments and the everyday ways in which people use the past to make sense of who they are. The volume explores how different understandings of and attachments to the European past produce different 'Europes' in the present, accounting for today's tense social and political relations. The book also explores formative histories for European identities that are neglected or hidden because of political circumstances and non-official heritage. Contributors consider the meanings of interlocking crises, such as economic fallout, xenophobia and the fragmentation of the EU, for new understandings of Europe's past in the present. Dimensions of Heritage and Memory will be of great interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of heritage and memory studies, museum studies, history, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology and politics. The book will also be interesting to practitioners and cultural heritage policy-makers. Chapters 1,3,4,9 and 10 of this book are available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. They have been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book contributes to the debate on what Europe means by demonstrating the complexities and contradictions inherent in the concept. They are seen most clearly when Europe is viewed from a long historical perspective. During the closing decades of the twentieth century Europe emerged as one of the main points of reference in both the cultural and the political constructs of the global community. An obsession with the concept of European identity is readily discernible. This process of identity construction provokes critical questions which the book aims to address. At the same time the book explores the opportunities offered by the concept of Europe to see how it may be used in the construction of the future. The approach is one of both deconstruction and reconstruction. The issue of Europe is closely related in the book to more general issues concerning the cultural construction of community. The book should therefore be seen as the companion of Myth and Memory in the Construction of Community, which is also published by PIE-Peter Lang in the series Multiple Europes. The book appears within the framework of a research project on the cultural construction of community in modernisation processes in comparison. This project is a joint enterprise of the European University Institute in Florence and the Humboldt University in Berlin sponsored by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Fund.

In Imagining Europe, Chiara Bottici and Benoît Challand explore the formation of modern European identity. Europe has not always been there, although we have been imagining it for quite some time. Even after the birth of a polity called the European Union, the meaning of Europe remained a very much contested topic. What is Europe? What are its boundaries? Is there a specific European identity or is the EU just the name for a group of institutions? This book answers these questions, showing that in Europe's formation, myth and memory, although distinct, are often merged in a common attempt to construct an identity for its present and its future. In a time when Europe is facing an existential crisis, when its meaning is being questioned, Imagining Europe explores a vital and often unacknowledged aspect of the European project.

This book puts the idea of Europe in its historical context, tracing it back to the ancient Greeks and their association of Europe with political freedom. From this starting point the first essay shows how Europe became identified with Christendom in the fifteenth century and with 'civilization' in the eighteenth, before being used by nineteenth-century reformers and reactionaries either to promote change or to defend the status quo. Twentieth-century developments are the focus for discussion in the other two essays. A number of 'projects' for Europe are examined against the background of the two world wars, consideration is given to recent trends towards political and economic integration and an assessment is offered of the contemporary relevance of the European idea.