THE BATTLEGROUNDS OF EUROPEAN IDENTITY1

Abstract

The study of European identity cannot take its clues from national identity, neither in form nor in substance. I begin with an examination of the general sociological concept of identity in order to uncover its resources for a more complex understanding of European identity. I then ask to what extent Europe really needs a European identity, and on what levels an identity may be found: in the received cultural ‘idea’ of Europe, in the cultural practices of celebration and ritualization, and in the consciousness if its citizens. In the next section, I present some of the basic descriptive evidence on the individual sense of European identity as routinely surveyed by Eurobarometer. In the final part I sketch some of the current battlegrounds of European identity: its relation to national identity, the challenge posed to it by globalization, and the shifts towards new identity mixes or hybrid identities. I conclude that there is indeed a potential for hybridity, that there are carrier groups for it (e.g. border populations or migrants), but that its development depends on the old social question now taken to the new European level-finding a viable social contract.

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