European and national identity construction programmes and politics, culture, history and religion

Project summary:

IME investigates European identities.

‘Who are we?’ is a perennial and a constantly relevant question in modern society. In IME, we explore a wide range of definitions of ‘us, the Europeans’ proposed and acted upon by various actors in Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

The question of European identities is particularly urgent in today’s society as the level of contestation regarding the identity of Europe has risen to a new height for a number of reasons, many of which are clearly related to the EU integration processes.  The familiar ‘EU democratic deficit’; low levels of citizen identification; the challenges to further deepening and increased opposition to further enlargement; and the advance of globalisation, have made the issue of European identities more salient.

Arising from this context, IME aims to provide synthetic and more comprehensive understanding of European identities lived and expressed by people of Europe and in particular to explore:

  • what are European identities?
  • in what ways they have been formed?
  • and what trajectories they may take from now on?

Researchers: Anna Triandafyllidou, Ruby Gropas, Hara Kouki