An Anthropology of the European Union

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.

Irène Bellier LAIOS-CNRS,Paris Thomas M. Wilson Professor of Anthropology, Binghamton University

Part I Institutions, Politics and Society at the Core of the European Union 2 Virtual Europe 3 The European Union, Identity Politics and the Logic of Interests' Representation 4 Debating Europe: Globalization Rhetoric and European Union Unemployment Policies 5 Surrogate Discourses of Power: The European Union and the Problem of Society Part II Belonging and Identity in the European Union 6 European Citizenship, Citizens of Europe and European Citizens 7 Agendas in Conflict: Nation, State and Europe in the Northern Ireland Borderlands 8 Not Simple At All: Danish Identity and the European Union 9 Boundaries at Work: Discourses and Practices of Belonging in the European Space Agency