scholarly journals Tożsamość europejska jako problem historii i współczesności

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacenty Siewierski
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
National Identity ◽  
European Community ◽  
National Identities ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The Future

Christianity, filtered through the heritage of Enlightenment, is a founding stone of European identity. Western Christianity is of particular importance here, as only in the region it dominated we can speak of Enlightenment and periods that precede it, that is Renaissance and Reformation. European Union is primarily constituted by countries that are culturally related to Western (Latin) Christianity. Enlightenment (secular rationalism) as such was not sufficient for creation of European identity. The paper describes the evolution of European identity closely linked with Christianity, that was later on left for rationalism and national identities. I try to prove that the identity of Europeans is historically closely linked to the diversity of nations that constitute Europe and that a national identity serves to underline European Community rather than deny it. Existing European identity has its roots in common history, contrary to popular believes that Europeans identify only with their nations. The paper also explains why new European identity needs to be constructed in relation to common European past and not in relation to the future of Europe.

Gazing at Fiction in Brussels: Europe as Forgery in David Černý's Entropa

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina Zigelyte
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Political Institution ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
National Stereotypes

This article explores issues of visual representations and the interaction between fiction and reality in the making of the ‘idea of Europe’. It specifically focuses on David Černý's installation Entropa, exhibited at the headquarters of the Council of the European Union in 2009. The article argues that, despite the use of national stereotypes as the most characteristic representational element of the installation, Entropa does not limit itself to a sardonic critique of a political institution and a ridicule of national identities. Rather, it unveils the uneasiness of facing European identity as fiction. Entropa challenges the boundary between theatricality and reality, because it is exhibited in a political institution. The installation is addressed as a narrative of confusion, where fiction and fact interact in the construction of ideas on Europe, its history, politics, and culture. Therefore, the article concludes, such interaction potentially accommodates a critical standpoint towards the idea of Europe itself.

“My European feelings are not only based on the fact that I live in Europe”

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Krzyżanowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
National Identities ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
European Citizenship ◽  
Identification Processes

Identity has recently become one of the most frequently theorised and explored topics within various sub-branches of social sciences. Collective identities in general, and their ancestry and construction in particular, are being perceived in different ways by historians, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists and, last but not least, discourse-analysts. This article aims at shedding a new light on the concept of European identity, which, so far, has been most frequently analysed within the context of the European Union and its political and economic impact on European space. Despite drawing theoretically on some well-grounded traditions of research on European identity, such as, e.g., analysis of its contradiction and suplementariness with national identities, or, its interconnection with such concepts as European citizenship or European integration, the analysis of European identity presented here is put in the context of globally understood identification processes. Empirically, the article draws on the analysis of TV talk show thematically bound by the topics concerning European Union’s impact on national identities.

scholarly journals European identity of Scotland in the context of Brexit

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-177
Author(s):  
Mikhail Grabevnik
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
National Identity ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Soft Or ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Key Factor

The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union focused the issue of cleavage of British statehood by European criteria. According to the results of sociological surveys and polls, the distribution of preferences of Brexit is correlated with the national identification matrix. Most Scots and Irish of United Kingdom support remaining the membership in the European Union, while the most English defend soft or hard Brexit. However, the depth of such cleavage underlines the uncertainty in the preferences of citizens who identify as British in general. In the context of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, the question of the European identity of Scots was also underlines by Scotland's regional political actors. This article is aimed to the analysis of the dynamics of the European identity of the Scottish community in 2016–2020 under Brexit conditions. The author concludes that the share of Scots with European identities increased after 2016, and Brexit was a key factor in the dynamics. At the same time, the actualization of European identity among the Scottish community is connected with the pragmatic strategy of the Scottish community and regional political actors to neutralize the negative economic and social effects of Brexit and plays an instrumental role in the national and European political arenas. The article starts with an excursion to the issues of national identity in the modern United Kingdom in the studies of Western and Russian authors. Then, based on an analysis of sociological data, the question of the European identity of Scots was raised, as well as the role of the national identity of United Kingdom citizens in the issue of membership in the European Union. At the end of the article, author proposes the description of the position and strategy of the Scottish community on the issue of Brexit.

scholarly journals European Identity Issues in the Era of Globalization

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 239
Author(s):  
Elira Luli
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Member State ◽  
National Interest ◽  
National Identities ◽  
State Model ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National State ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
European Dimension

Globalization is already an uncontestable process nowadays. Its impacts have affected areas such as: economy, politics, geographical territorial boundaries, identity and national interest, style of life, customs and traditions. Thinking about globalization, the European Union is one of the proper indicators of free circulation of goods, people, products and services. In this context, EU member states are not just a unity of states who share benefits such as single market, currency, space, common civilization values and identity but also a division when it comes to questions related to national interest and national state model and role, sovereignty and ideological issues that some member state are such in obsolete manner attached to them. This paper will examine identity issues within the frame of European Union, in particular not implicitly the unifying factors such as art, culture and history but the divergences that stems from the fact of a single policy for a joint European national interest and speaking in one voice. Ultimately, as the globalization process continue to expand how possible will be to still cultivate culture diversity beyond national frames and extend national identities within a European dimension.

Plotting stories after war: Toward a methodology for negotiating identity

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadim Khoury
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
National Identities ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Negotiation Of Identity ◽  
The Future ◽  
National Stereotypes ◽  
Crucial Part ◽  
Structural Theories

Identity is an important factor in international conflicts. As it is a crucial part of the problem, some scholars argue, national identity should be an important part of the solution. Parties to the conflict, they recommend, should negotiate their national identities so as to reach a “narrative equilibrium” that will allow them to overcome national stereotypes, build trust, and sustain peaceful relations in the future. This article evaluates not the merits of these negotiations, but the tools that social scientists have employed to analyze them. Its main purpose, therefore, is methodological. It argues that attempts to theorize the negotiation of identity fall short of their goal because they focus heavily on the notion of negotiation and very little on the concept of identity. To remedy this shortcoming, the article turns to the structural theories of narrative to conceptualize the negotiation of identity as a negotiation of literary plots. It argues that the negotiation of identity is the attempt to move away from two mutually exclusive romantic plots, and toward tragic, comic, or satiric plots in counterpoint. The introduction of plots, the article concludes, provides important insights that help theorize the negotiation of identity in post-conflict scenarios.

scholarly journals Untitled

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 36-41
Author(s):  
Ana Maria Anghelea
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
National Identities ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Eu

When at the end of the 1980s the EU launched a number of policies aimed to creating a European identity, the member states responded by incorporating into the Maastricht Treaty a clause stating that the European Union should respect the member states’ respective national identities (article F, point1). This reaction, along with the introduction of principle of subsidiary and the rejection of the word “federal”, revealed that many member states considered the creation of a European identity as a potential threat to their own national identities and their citizen’s national loyalties (Hojelid, 2001).

Travelling Beyond the National: Mobile Citizenship and Flexible Identities in French-Language Return Road Movies

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Gott
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
National Identities ◽  
French Language ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The Past ◽  
French Republicanism ◽  
Road Movies

This chapter examines what is likely the increasingly prevalent ‘return to origins’ movie. A close look at the corpus of French-language road cinema of the past twenty years reveals a genre that actively reformulates the limits of national and European identity by (often literally) redrawing the map. The popularity of ‘return’ voyages is reflective of a desire to remap French and other national identities within the parameters of an enlarged European Union, within which physical and administrative frontiers have fallen. Return films demonstrate that it is now conceivable to be French, Belgian or Swiss and retain, or rediscover, a connection to another identity, whether Polish, Czech, Armenian, Spanish, Italian, or Maghrebi. The chapter begins with a discussion of how mobile and layered outlooks on citizenship fit into conception of French republicanism and European identity frameworks before zooming in on case studies from France and Switzerland. Voyage en Arménie/Armenia (Robert Guédiguian, 2006, France), Ten’ja/Testament (Hassan Legzouli, 2004, France/Morocco) and Comme des voleurs (à l'est)/Stealth (Lionel Baier, 2005, Switzerland) furnish the examples.

scholarly journals ‘Miki-le-toss ou comment repérer un guech en quelques leçons’: l’identité ethnique ‘tos’ en France à travers les blogs de jeunes lusodescendants ('Miki-le-toss' or How to Spot a 'Guech' in a Few Lessons: 'Tos' Ethnic Identity in France in the Blogs of French-Portuguese Youth)

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martine Fernandes
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
National Identities ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Cultures ◽  
Migrant Populations ◽  
European Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Movement

In this article, I analyze the ‘tos’ ethnic identity, as expressed in blogs written by French-Portuguese teenagers in France, also called ‘lusodescendants,’ who are the children of Portuguese residents. Starting in the eighties, the reclaiming of this ethnic identity has been reinforced by Portugal’s entry in the European Union in 1986, the institutionalization of links between the lusodescendants and Portugal, and France’s recent opening to its migrant populations. Influenced by the Chicano cultural movement, the ‘tos’ movement shares some of its foundational features: a myth of origin, a privileging of unity, and a conservative notion of family. Despite this movement’s nationalist tendencies, I argue that it does not threaten this youth’s integration to France or to Europe, especially since lusodescendants, who are often Portuguese and French nationals, feel ‘twice European.’ In their case, European identity, to which they never refer in the blogs, is a mere sum of national identities. If a common European identity were needed, it should not be in the form of assimilationist policies replacing national cultures by a ‘European culture.’ Indeed, most European countries share a history of dictatorships and nationalisms, i.e. of official cultures being forced onto people. This dictatorial and nationalist past is directly responsible for the Portuguese diaspora and the lusodescendants’ ethnic identity claims today.

scholarly journals Hrvatski nacionalni identitet i Europska unija

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 159-170
Author(s):  
Andreja Sršen ◽  
Davor Piskač
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Internal Structure ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Structural Elements ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Main Aspect ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Eu

Croatian national identity and the European Union The permanent anthropological determinant of men which provides them with a feeling of social security is the feeling of belonging to a larger group of people. Various forms of such affiliations existed in the past. They represent older types of collective relationships, such as tribes, the Greek poleis, medieval kingdoms and the like. All of them exhibit the fundamental features of the “structure” of identity. Nowadays, Croatia being at the doorstep of the Euro­pean Union, the issue of national identity becomes a matter of its internal structure that re­sists integration, yet seeking to become a part of the “European identity structure”. Croatia’s scepticism towards the EU stems from the questions of whether the European identity exists and which possibilities for preserving all the structural elements of Croatian national identity, including language as the main aspect, exist within the European Union. The territory, lan­guage and customs acquire defensive features that are becoming increasingly disintegrating and decreasingly integrating in the multi-ethnic Europe. Chorwacka tożsamość narodowa i Unia Europejska Trwałą determinantą antropologiczną człowieka, dającą mu poczucie bezpieczeństwa spo­łecznego, jest świadomość przynależności do większej grupy. Niegdyś istniały różne formy takiej przynależności, a mianowicie starsze typy związków społecznych, jak plemiona, greckie polis, średniowieczne królestwa itd. Współcześnie te formy przynależności zbiorowej są związane ze strukturą narodową, z państwem-narodem lub też ze strukturą ponadnarodową, jaką jest Unia Europejska. W każdej z nich można znaleźć podstawowe cechy strukturalne w postaci tożsamości narodowej lub ponadnarodowej. Obecnie, kiedy Chorwacja oczekuje na przyjęcie do Unii Euro­pejskiej, kwestia tożsamości narodowej staje się sprawą jej wewnętrznej struktury, która stawia opór integracji, ale jednocześnie chce być częścią ponadnarodowej „tożsamości europejskiej”. Sceptycyzm Chorwacji wobec UE wynika ze stawianych pytań: czy istnieje tożsamość europej­ska i jakie są możliwości zachowania wszystkich elementów chorwackiej konstrukcji tożsamości narodowej z językiem jako jej głównym komponentem w obrębie Unii Europejskiej? Terytorium, język i zwyczaje zyskują bowiem cechy defensywne, stając się w wieloetnicznej Europie czynni­kiem coraz bardziej dezintegrującym, a nie służącym integracji.

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