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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Area / regional studies
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An Anthropology of the European Union - Building, Imagining and Experiencing the New Europe (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R3,883
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An Anthropology of the European Union - Building, Imagining and Experiencing the New Europe (Hardcover)
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One of the problems facing Europe is that the building of
institutional Europe and top-down efforts to get Europeans to
imagine their common identity do not necessarily result in
political and cultural unity. Anthropologists have been slow to
consider the difficulties presented by the expansion of the EU
model and its implications for Europe in the 21st Century.
Representing a new trend in European anthropology, this book
examines how people adjust to their different experiences of the
new Europe. The role of culture, religion, and ideology, as well as
insiders' social and professional practices, are all shown to shed
light on the cultural logic sustaining the institutions and
policies of the European Union.
On the one hand, the activities of the European institutions in
Brussels illustrate how people of many different nationalities,
languages and cultures can live and work together. On the other
hand, the interests of many people at the local, regional and
national levels are not the same as the Eurocrats'. Contributors
explore the issues of unity and diversity in 'Europe-building'
through various European institutions, images, and programmes, and
their effects on a variety of definitions of identity in such
locales as France, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Ireland and
Belgium.
Adopting an anthropological approach, this book explores the quest
to construct a sense of common identity at institutional level in
the European Union (EU), and is particularly useful in identifying
current research on the EU as project and object. The introductory
essay by Irene Bellier and Thomas M. Wilson laments the
marginalization of culture and identity in the EU and offers a
useful overview ofdifferent approaches to the anthropology of
Europe from American, British and French traditions. It examines
the complexity of the concept of EU, which can refer to member
states but also to a wider social system. Although Europe is
currently in the process of defining and expanding a new public
space, this project is severely hampered by the nation-state model,
which dominates proceedings.
Contributions to the book are divided in two parts. The first deals
primarily with the institutional
f0level in Europe. Marc Abeles's contribution adopts an unusual
approach by querying whether the construction of a harmonious
Europe should be regarded as an indefinite, ongoing process, rather
than an end product. Although in theory the EU is a borderless,
post-national or perhaps supra-national region, its political
practice has been rooted in a strong sense of territorial identity.
The concept of a virtual Europe could serve as the catalyst for new
perspectives on regional or national traditions.
Irene Bellier explores the very interesting question of identity
politics in the EU and the consequences of formal institutional
recognition of many diverse interests. In the beginning, the
European Common Market defended national interests and sustained
sources of national identification among its civil servants. This
process has been challenged by the identification of other sources
of interest such as trans-national cultures or regional bodies,
which also demand formal recognition of their interests. The change
in the locus of representation from Parliament to specific lobby
groups is impacting on the authority of individual nation-states.
Gilbert Weiss and Ruth Wodak explore theglobalization rhetoric of
the EU with specific reference to unemployment policies. The
central concern of this chapter is the linguistic nature of the
decision-making process in the Competitiveness Advisory Group.
Business-speak, location-speak and globalization rhetoric are used
to construct an EU identity that differs significantly from other
larger identities such as that of Japan or the USA.
Essentially the EU is a collaborative project, which requires the
input of all its member states. This is a process, which is not
without tension as the EU has itself impacted on the authority of
nation-states. Despite its constant reference to the principle of
subsidiarity, the EU has implemented certain policy-making
decisions at supra-national rather than national levels and created
a new set of hierarchial relations. The principle of subsidiary is
the focus of Douglas Holmes' essay, which examines the surrogate
discourse of power in the EU. Holmes observes the significance of
subsidiarity underlying the development of an increasingly federal
EU but the principle also provides the substance of a complex moral
discourse designed to sustain the European project and its
relations with existing diversities.
Four essays in part two of this book examine the concept of
belonging and identity in the European Union. Catherine Neveu's
contribution is particularly useful in its exploration of the
potential contribution of anthropologists to the construction of
European citizenship. Anthropologists can investigate different
ways through which background models and representations regarding
citizenship are invoked by European officials and lobbyists. They
can investigate the negotiation process indeciding, implementing
and evaluating policies and programmes. She suggests that an
anthropological critique of European citizenship is increasingly
necessary to address global questions of citizenship, issues of
identity and the relative weight of representation and
participation for the democratic process.
Thomas Wilson examines the role of anthropology in EU scholarship
on culture and identity. This chapter champions an approach
exploring the impact of EU institutions as experienced on a day-to
day basis. Wilson is a well-established authority on Northern
Ireland and sets his argument in the context of Northern Ireland's
borderlands where nationalist ideologies restrict the political and
economic integration of Britain and Ireland. EU actions designed to
alleviate this ethno-nationalist struggle are accepted or resisted
within this context.
Richard Jenkins's essay also emphasizes the benefits of an
anthropological approach to everyday life in a local community.
This contribution focuses on a small town in Jutland prior to the
1992 referendum on the Maastricht Treaty. Jenkins examines the
complexity of the relationship between Danish identity and the EU,
where a sense of Danish-ness has served both pro- and anti- EU
camps. He examines the pro- and anti- positions to arrive at a
complex picture of Danish-ness, which emphasizes similarity with
the Nordic world and difference from Germany. It emphasizes
equality of relationships within Denmark and positive feelings
regarding ethnic-cultural homogeneity.
Stacia Zabusky explores institutional discourses and practices of
belonging in the European State Agency. She focuses in particular
on European officials such as members ofthe European Parliament,
Commission officials and civil servants of the Council who are
frequently regarded as the new 'true Europeans' by individuals
within and outside core EU institutions. These officials operate as
'architects' or 'engineers' of Europe's public space and have clear
conceptions of a cultural and linguistic European identity at
individual and collective levels. Although national boundaries are
theoretically irrelevant in the EU, its citizens continue to feel
strong loyalties to their member states. For this reason, Zabusky
avails of the expression 'boundaries at work' to denote the
significance of borders which are theoretically irrelevant.
This book is extremely useful in its exploration of the
construction of an EU in which centripedal and centrifugal forces
are constantly at work. As the process of harmonization and
integration gathers momentum, there is great potential for the
proliferation of complementary and/or competing identities. As this
volume emphasises, it is neither feasible nor desirable to attempt
to camouflage our differences. Instead the acknowledgement of
cultural differences is a dynamic process that can generate new
insights into the evolution of EU institutions and identities.
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