Europe: Cultural construction and reality

Book abstract:

With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe political borders and blocks have disappeared and a new Europe is emerging. Despite this national, ethnic, cultural and social differences still exist. This book provides a series of papers based on research into this process of change in Europe. The majority of the papers were originally given at a conference at the European Academy Berlin in September 1998 which was arranged by the journal 'Ethnologia Europaea' and the Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt University (Berlin). The contributors are academics from, in the main, various European universities.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part has papers with a general theoretical and/or historical approach. Themes explored include: the relationship between place and identity in the context of a new concept of locality; the cultural idea of border in the European context; the new functions of localised cultures and the new meaning of national culture in a transnational world; interethnic relations in Europe; and the cultural politics of European integration. The second part includes case studies reflecting the different regional or national contexts of Europeanisation. Themes include: different concepts of nationality, citizenship and identity using Northern Ireland as a microcosm of Europe; the development of ethnic cohesion in South Tyrol; changes to national identity in Estonia following the collapse of the Soviet Union.