300099 Constellations of Belonging in Europe: Beneath and Beyond the Nation-State (MA: Soziologie der globalen Welt) (S) (SoSe 2015)

The collapse of the former socialist systems of Eastern Europe and the fall of the Berlin wall turned Europe, once again, towards a new radical redefinition. If the Cold War was separating the two sides of the continent for half of the 20th century, its ending was seen, at least at its inception, to be its counterpart. After fifty years of Cold War positionings, optimists envisaged a growing unity of Europe and the teleological progress of the former socialist economies towards a flourishing democratic capitalism.

But the dynamics occurring after the collapse of the Wall were unexpectedly challenging and not confirming the established, mainly Western ways of seeing Europe. If the German unification could previously be envisaged, at all, the same thing could not be said about the dismembering of the ex-Czechoslovakia, and especially of the dismembering and the break up of the war in the ex-Yugoslavia. After inventing two horrible terms – and engaging in processes denoted by them -, Holocaust and Gulag, Europeans were bringing to the forefront of the political arena yet another notion: the Ethnic Cleansing.

But unpredictability does not affect only the Eastern Europe, and the outburst of nationalisms in the East is by far not the single possible ‘unpleasant’ surprise. The emergence of the European Union as a supra-state structure and the globalization process leads towards both, hopes and fears, opportunities and threats – for instance instigated by the migrants’ quest to enter the ‘Festung Europa’, triggering new kinds of closures. There are hopes for a cosmopolitan Europe as well as the fears of racism and xenophobia, in both East and West. There is also the opportunity for a united Europe, as well as the challenges imposed by the ‘Babylon’ of the European languages, cultures and ideologies.

This seminar proposes a way of analyzing Europe ‘at its grassroots’: instead of projecting an intellectual, a state-oriented or a geopolitical view of Europe. The purpose of the course is to analyze the social identities and the multiple belonging of Europeans, as a fruitful and challenging way to understand the cultural and social transformations within the European societies – paying special attention to dynamics and entanglements between diverse life-worlds.

The main themes are:
• Conceptualizing Europe
• European Others
• Ethnonationalism
• European Minorities
• Migrations-Displacements-Belonging
• Challenges of Difference
• Accommodating Difference in Europe
• Media and Memories
• European Borders and Borderlands
• Understanding Europe

Requirements for participation, required level

Seminar: MA Sociology, BGHS
Students attending this Seminar must be ready to read English texts and to discuss them in English. They are expected to guide sessions and to write discussion summaries. Ideally, they should already be acquainted with theoretical approaches to ethnicity formation.

Bibliography

Goddard, A. Victoria, Llobera R. Josep, Shore, Cris, Introduction: The Anthropology of Europe, in Goddard, A. Victoria, Llobera R. Josep, Shore, Cris, The Anthropology of Europe. Identities and Boundaries in Conflict, Berg Publishers Ltd, Oxford, 1994, pp. 1-30

Morozov, V., & Rumelili, B. (2012). The external constitution of European identity: Russia and Turkey as Europe-makers. Cooperation and Conflict, 47(1), 28-48.
Verdery, K. (1996): Nationalism, Postsocialism, and Space in Eastern Europe. In: Social Research, 63(1), pp. 77-95
Nienass, B. (2013) "Postnational Relations to the Past: A “European Ethics of Memory”?." International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 26.1: 41-55.
Zolberg, A.R. and Woon, L.L, (1999): Why Islam is like Spanish: Cultural Incorporation in Europe and the United States. In: Politics & Society, Vol. 27, Issue1, pages 5 – 38.
Yılmaz, F. (2012). Right-wing hegemony and immigration: How the populist far-right achieved hegemony through the immigration debate in Europe. Current sociology, 60(3), 368-381.
Spiridon, M. (2006): Identity Discourse on Borders in Eastern Europe. In: Comparative Literature, Fall 2006, pp. 377-386