Master of Arts Thesis
EurocultureUniversité de Strasbourg
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
June 2014
Prospects for European identity: A case study of Third
Culture Kids in Strasbourg
Submitted by: William Gandemer S2446731 / 50811371 williamgandemer@gmail.com Supervised by: Jean-Pascal Daloz James Leigh Strasbourg, 2 June 2014
MA Programme Euroculture
Declaration
I, William Gandemer, hereby declare that this thesis, entitled “Prospects for European identity: A case study of TCKs in Strasbourg”, submitted as partial requirement for the Master of Arts Programme Euroculture, is my own original work and expressed in my own words. Any use made within it of works of other authors in any form (e.g. ideas, figures, texts, tables, etc.), are properly acknowledged in the text as well as in the List of References.
I hereby also acknowledge that I was informed about the regulations pertaining to the assessment of the Master of Arts thesis Euroculture and about the general completion rules for the Master of Arts Programme Euroculture.
Signed William Gandemer
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the following persons for their support and assistance during this research project. From the Universities of Strasbourg and Groningen, I would especially like to thank my supervisors Jean-Pascal Daloz and James Leigh for their invaluable help guiding my work, and for providing excellent advice over the months. I would also like to thank my family and friends for supporting me during this challenging and enriching learning opportunity. And last but not least, a warm thank you to all the persons that kindly participated in my case study, and greatly contributed to this thesis with their time and stories.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ... 1
2. Literature review: Clarifying a concept, “What is European identity…?” ... 3
2.1. Conceptual approaches to identity ... 4
2.1.1. The birth and evolution of ‘identity’ ... 4
2.1.2. Modern interpretations of identity. ... 6
2.2. Conflicting theories of European identity ... 9
2.2.1. Historical-cultural European identity: The limits of a concept ... 11
2.2.2. European political identity ... 16
3. Third Culture Kids: A case study, “…what are its expressions within the TCK community…?” ... 24
3.1. Introduction ... 24
3.1.1. Overview and methodology ... 25
3.1.2. Rationale for case study methodology ... 26
3.2. Research sample and site ... 27
3.2.1. Research sample: Third Culture Kids ... 27
3.2.2. Expatriate communities and TCKs in Strasbourg, a European capital. ... 36
3.3. Overview of the research design ... 43
3.4. Data-Collection Methods ... 45
3.5. Methods for data analysis and synthesis ... 49
3.6. Delimiting the study ... 51
3.7. Conclusion ... 54
4. Findings ... 56
4.1. Background, categorization of participants and other variables ... 56
4.2. European union and integration ... 61
4.3. National identity in Europe ... 64
4.4. European identity as a political identity ... 68
4.5. Analysis ... 70
5. Discussion and conclusions, “… and what are the prospects, based on this experience, for a collective identity in Europe?” ... 73
5.1. Summary and interpretation of findings ... 73
5.2. TCKs and transferability ... 75
5.3. TCKs and the elite dimension of European integration: discrepancies and divergences ... 77
5.4. Prospects for European identity ... 80
5.5. Going further: European societies in a globalized world ... 83
5.5. Limitations ... 87
6. Appendix ... 89
1. Introduction
This Master’s thesis finds its inspiration in the debate on European identity. This debate is closely linked to the process of European integration initiated after World War II, evolving alongside a greater scheme to maintain peace on the continent, and construct a unified Europe with shared values and norms1.
Since the beginnings of the European project, public support for integration has never fallen as low as it has since the start of the 2008 economic crisis, threatening to compromise over sixty years of painful European construction2. Although the troubled economic climate has often been cited as the main reason for dwindling support, a largely overlooked and admittedly subtle debate at the core of the European project has been increasingly identified for its importance in a growing climate of Euroskepticism: that of European identity3. Indeed, while the European project has thus far largely been driven by economic goals based on neo-functionalist assumptions that an economically-healthy Europe would prevent conflict and foster cooperation, concerns over the effect of deeper integration and its impact on the cultural make-up of European nations and States seem to have thus far been insufficiently acknowledged. Since the Maastricht treaty and those that followed, however, the European Union has been taking on far greater responsibility towards the peoples of Europe, affecting virtually every aspect of its member States’ socio-economic systems, and resulting in a true spill-over effect of competences whose impact on local cultures, social and political life has, been overlooked until recent years4. Resulting from this impact is the question of whether and to what extent nations with deeply-rooted identities are truly willing to look past the EU’s utilitarian role and reach consensus, and how the process of integrating national structures that previously constrained identities modifies traditional reference points and
1 Viktoria Kaina and Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski, “EU Governance and European identity,” Living
Reviews in European Governance, Vol. 8, (2013), No. 1, 5-6, accessed 7 March 2014. Doi: 10.12942/lreg-2013-1.
2 Janis A. Emmanaouilidis et al., Stronger After the Crisis: Strategic Choices for Europe’s Way Ahead
(European Policy Centre, June 2011), accessed 13 March 2014. http://www.epc.eu/documents/uploads/pub_1300_strategy_paper.pdf
3 Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, “Does Identity or Economic Rationality Drive Public Opinion on
European Integration?”, American Political Science Association, accessed 13 March 2014. http://www.unc.edu/~hooghe/assets/docs/papers/psonline.pdf
4 Sean Carey, “Undivided Loyalties: Is National Identity an Obstacle to European Integration?” European
identities5. Therefore, along with this growing responsibility comes the necessity to address the question of Europeans’ willingness to truly place their trust in the EU and, by extension, to manifest this trust through the transfer of their States’ sovereignty, with the various implications it may involve, inter alia, on people’s traditional reference points.
Essentially, this thesis applies an identity-centered approach to discover more about the nature and potential emergence of a collective European identity in the framework of European integration. The central research question in this thesis is one posed by members of the EuroIdentities academic research project that gathers some of the most herald scholars in the field of European identity6. These scholars ask how people balance divergent or discrepant collective demands and how they handle the paradoxes caused by contradictory collective concerns and loyalties. As a mere contribution to this question, this thesis thus seeks to learn more about this paradox by exploring current expressions of Europeanness in the European Union. In particular, it seeks to understand the role of traditional cultural or political structures in present and evolving bonds of loyalty and allegiance.
To answer these questions, I first explore the disputed concept of European identity and attempt to draw conclusions on its concrete implications. Later, I present my case study of Third Culture Kids in Strasbourg, a social group whose experience handling paradoxal allegiances and loyalties offers a new avenue to explore post-national sentiments in Europe. I hypothesize, in particular, that their post-national features may favor adhesion to the concept of European identity. Finally, I will extract conclusions based on my findings with an aim to uncover factors that favor post-national sentiments, and the possible emergence of a self-recognizing European we-group.
Ultimately, this thesis hopes to contribute to assessing the prospects for the emergence of a collective European identity.
5 Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe. Idea, Identity, Reality (Palgrave Macmillan, 1995). Chapter 1. 6 EuroIdentities, “European identity,” accessed 13 March 2014.
2. Literature review: Clarifying a concept, “What is European identity…?” It is difficult to dissociate the debate on European identity from the process of European integration. Since its inception, the European project was largely presented to Europeans as an economic one, but deeper integration since the 1990s has brought along a growing climate of Euroskepticism in which Europeans perceive the EU’s incursion into national affairs as a threat to their country’s sovereignty7. Concerns over dwindling levels of support in a post-Maastricht EU quickly led to a stormy debate over European identity that has continued to this day at the highest levels of European governance and within academic circles.
The body of literature on the topic of European identity is indeed vast, and has been disputed from a plethora of prisms in the field of social sciences. While it can readily be admitted that existing contributions to the topic of European identity and citizenship may provide interesting scope for deeper study, this thesis will focus primarily on the interpretations provided by pan-European organizations, and the scholars that have dealt with their influence in the debate. As major governing bodies, these two organizations indeed provide the impetus for European integration and cooperation, and it is therefore presumed that their ability to gather and disseminate information on the topic confers a dimension of reliability and influence to these sources.
This first chapter will thus gradually lead to the debate on European identity as it is promoted by the continent’s two main pan-European organizations. In a preliminary discussion, I will explore the troublesome concept of identity in order to introduce some of the issues pertaining to the concept. Understanding the subtleness of identity will then make way for the debate on European identity, which I shall introduce from the various theoretical prisms that describe it. Based on recent scholarship, I argue that the latter is essentially a political and value-laden identity with strong features of post-nationalism.
7 Michelle Cini and Nieves Pérez-Solórzano Borrogán, European Union Politics, Third Edition (New
2.1. Conceptual approaches to identity 2.1.1. The birth and evolution of ‘identity’
Understanding the meaning of European identity lies at the heart of this thesis, but it also entails a need to define the highly disputed concept of identity beforehand.
Definitions found in dictionaries provide little insight into the matter. The Oxford Dictionary, for instance, defines identity as, “The fact of being who or what a person or thing is,” and alternatively, “The characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is.” 8 These vague definitions seem to point at the inherent complexity of the notion, whose borders a number of academics in social sciences have attempted to define. Catherine Halpern, in the opening chapter of Identité(s), describes identity as “a notion without a history.”9 It is one that has stirred the belief, as far back as pre-Socratic thinkers, that humans and their groups possess distinctive features.
Much of today’s body of literature on identity in the social sciences is derived from a model of developmental psychology unveiled by American psychologist Erik Erikson in the 1950s. Considered by most specialists as the ‘father of identity’, he exposed the majority of his novel theories in his book Childhood and Society10, and greatly impacted ensuing research in the field. Outstanding amongst his findings is a distinction between three levels of identity (ego identity, personal identity, and social identity), as well as eight stages of identity in a person’s life cycle. His work was heavily influenced by Freud’s theory of identification whereby one’s identity is the product of constant and changing interaction between the subject (Ego) and his social environment (and therefore a process that allows ‘identity’ to be built)11. As explained by historian Philip Gleason, Eriksson’s extensive work led him to admit that the main difficulty in conceptualizing identity lies in its processual nature, “located in the core of the individual and yet also in the core of his communal culture, a process which
8 Oxford Dictionaries, accessed 2 April 2014, http://oxforddictionaires.com/definition/english/identity 9 Catherine Halpern, “L’identité. Histoire d’un succès”, in Identité(s), l’individu, le groupe, la société,
edited by Catherine Halpern (Sciences Humaines Éditions, 2009), 7.
10 Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society (W.W. Norton & Co, 1950).
11 Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bernard Pontalis, Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse (Presses universitaires de
establishes, in fact, the identity of those two identities.” 12 A further concise interpretation by the author provides us with a clearer understanding of this theory13:
What he seems to mean by this Delphic deliverance is that identity involves an interaction between the interior development of the individual personality, understood in terms derived from the Freudian identity-superego model, and the growth of a sense of selfhood that arises from participating in society, internalizing its cultural norms, acquiring different statuses, and playing different roles. As the individual passes through the eight stages of the life cycle distinguished by Erikson, the ego undergoes certain experiences, and confronts various tasks, distinctive to each stage. These experiences and tasks are related to biological maturation, but they are also intrinsically linked through social interaction to the milieu in which the individual finds himself; the features of that milieu are in turn conditioned by the historical situation of the culture that shapes the social world in which the individual and his fellows exist. An identity crisis is a climatic turning point in this process; it is the normal occurrence of adolescence, but it can also be precipitated by unusual difficulties further along in the life cycle.
Erikson’s findings paved the way for further study and the development of competing views on the concept of identity, following its appropriation by sociologists outside of its traditional psychoanalytical framework. Noteworthy landmarks include a popularization within academic circles of the closely related concept of identification, derived from what Sigmund Freud initially described as the process according to which a child assimilates itself to external persons and objects14. Nelson N. Foote redefined identification as, “appropriation of and commitment to a particular identity or series of identities,” and the notion quickly became inseparable from identity. He and Robert K. Merton were notable contributors to the concept’s transformation through their theories that stressed the importance of roles15 and reference groups16 in understanding identity and identification.
12 Philip Gleason, “Identifying Identity: A Semantic History,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 69,
No. 4 (1983), 914, accessed 2 April 2014.
http://www.soec.uni- jena.de/fileadmin/soec/media/GSBC/Veranstaltungen/Gleason_Identifying_identity_-_a_semantic_history.pdf Highlights by William Gandemer.
13 Ibid., 914.
14 Christian Dubois, ed., “Topologie des trois identifications à partir du séminaire de 61/61 de J.Lacan sur
l’identification”, Le Bulletin Freudien n°20 (April 1993), 2 – 3, accessed 2 April 2014.
http://www.association-freudienne.be/pdf/bulletins/24-BF20DUBOIS.pdf?phpMyAdmin=0k39wA0M-rYtTueZFUi-nHQMKb1
15 Philip Gleason, “Identifying Identity: A Semantic History,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 69,
No. 4 (1983), 917, accessed 2 April 2014.
http://www.soec.uni- jena.de/fileadmin/soec/media/GSBC/Veranstaltungen/Gleason_Identifying_identity_-_a_semantic_history.pdf
The 1960s witnessed an even greater diffusion and acknowledgement of the term ‘identity’, but also of competing theories, through the work of the sociological school known as symbolic interactionists, including sociologists such as Erving Goffman and Peter L. Berger. They advocated an approach to the self-consciousness of the individual as the product of social interactions within a shared symbolic system17, and therefore in continuous adaptation to social situations. Around the same time, its appropriation in the context of the Civil Rights movement in the United States proved to be an even greater driving force, one that further extended and complicated its terminology by linking identity to emerging social claims, and as a means of asserting self-identification, inter alia, to previously unconsidered minorities (“African-American”, “Native-American”, homosexuals, women). It seems identity had become a means to describe new social phenomena produced by newly acquired social rights. Coincidentally, its significance grew with an increased acknowledgement of the individual as a unique entity, distinguishable from social structures. As such, identity was narrowing down, serving not only to describe structures, but also the individual.
By the 1970s, it was therefore contended that two major interpretations of identity were prevalent in academic circles. The first, a psychoanalytic approach advocated by Erikson, and based on the Freudian tradition, ascribed identity to an internal factor existing independently from change. Alternatively, the second, upheld by sociologists18 such as Foote or Berger no later than the 1960s, understood identity as something that was liable to change with circumstances, and the product of interactions between the individual and society. In short, these contrasting views are predominantly distinguishable by the continual or permanent nature of identity.
2.1.2. Modern interpretations of identity.
Since Erikson’s findings, and under the impulsion of postmodernism and debates over multiculturalism, identity has taken on multiple meanings, and is loosely employed today across a broad spectrum of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. By 1983, Philip Gleason could, in fact, already state that identity “[had] come to mean so
17 Ibid., 917.
many things that, by itself, it [meant] nothing,”19 all the while upholding that the notion could “legitimately” be used in a number of contexts20. It now seems that the notion of identity itself is facing an identity crisis, and that the social sciences and humanities, if we are to believe Rogers Brubaker and Junqua Frédéric, have “surrendered”21 to its use
ad nauseum, even going so far as to be exploited by academics, “whose main work has
not been concerned primarily with these topics (…)”22. A consequence of this has been a tendency in today’s scholarship to underscore the conceptualizing value of identity, as it is interpreted and exploited by the prevailing constructivist approach23. Rogers Brubaker and Junqua Frédéric indeed heavily criticized the use of identity as an analytical concept in the social sciences, a notion – and term – they consider to be “riddled with ambiguity, riven with contradictory meanings, and encumbered by reifying connotations”24.
The general mood now seems to approve the nuanced historical approach to the study of identity. Amongst its supporters is sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann, for whom identity is indeed a process rooted in history and intrinsically linked to modernity25. According to him, the sudden uprising of identities since the 1950s can be explained by the disintegration of traditional communities26 in which the individual was fully integrated, assigned a role, and therefore less inclined to reflect on his status. The achieving of new freedoms and rights over the past century, indeed, introduced a new dimension of individualization in developed societies, marking a turning point in the traditional social order. Since then, individuals have increasingly been living in a contradictory system that upholds regulatory social action (carried out and incarnated by structures such as the State), all the while encouraging individual emancipation and therefore creating interpersonal competition27. In Les Sources du moi28, Charles Taylor supports this theory by evoking what he calls a ‘disenchantment of the world’ caused by modern freedom, a process that overturned former hierarchies and ‘desacralized’
19 Ibid., 914. 20 Ibid., 930.
21 Rogers Brubaker and Junqua Frédéric, “Beyond ‘Identity’” Theory and Society 29 (2000): 1-47, 4,
accessed 6 April 2014, http://works.bepress.com/wrb/2/
22 Ibid., 5. 23 Ibid., 1 - 2. 24 Ibid., 35.
25 Jean-Claude Kaufmann, L’invention de soi, une théorie de l’identité (Hachette Littératures, 2004), 17. 26 Ibid., 27.
27 Ibid., 291 – 293.
humans’ existence. Ultimately, he concludes, the modern individual has lost the ‘horizon of meaning’ that previously governed human life.
Kaufmann further stresses the dichotomy between reflexivity29 and shared identity, described differently as the ability of ‘Ego’ to build a stable identity that is both respectful of an overarching social structure and of the freedom granted for the expression of individuality. In post-modern societies, this switch has shattered traditional collective groups in societies “of destiny” and triggered a process of introspective “self-invention” that fuels individualism, strains social cohesion and tends, more often than not, to favor competing views, unreasonable competition and tension amongst individuals.30 Claude Lévi-Strauss had already described this phenomenon in 1974 as a “narcissistic trend” 31 that overthrows social and cultural codes. Results of this, he believes, are increasing individualistic expectations at the expense of broader social structures, such as the State or other traditional governing bodies that previously exerted far more control over individuals’ conduct and identity.
This last point opens a new and relevant window to explore identity. As this section showed, identity is an instable and multi-faceted concept; a major challenge thus lies in selecting the appropriate use of a notion that has been exploited by countless fields. I will therefore retain its use in the context most appropriate to the study of European identity, that is to say by placing emphasis on political identity, and more specifically the role of political structures in the creation and shaping of identities – in this case by pan-European organizations. A quote from Étienne Balibar sheds some light on this approach:
(…) it is not a question of setting a collective identity against individual identities. All identity is individual, but there is no individual identity that is not historical or, in other words, constructed within a field of social values, norms of behavior and collective symbols. The real question is how the dominant reference points of individual identity change over time and with the changing institutional environment.32
29 Anthony Giddens, through his theory of reflexive modernity, also describes this phenomenon, whereby
societies have become ever more aware of themselves, and therefore more subject to internal questioning.
30 Jean-Claude Kaufmann, L’invention de soi, une théorie de l’identité (Hachette Littératures, 2004), 292. 31 Claude Lévi-Strauss (dir.), L’Identité (Puf, 2010).
32 Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class. Ambiguous Identities (London: Verso,
Indeed, instead of delving into micro-levels of identity (individual identity, ego identity), we will refer to these regulatory social structures that, throughout history, have played a major role in constructing identity and which, in the case of pan-European organizations, have appropriated the concept of pan-European identity since the 1970s, and attempted to create a new space for identification.
2.2. Conflicting theories of European identity
Providing a description of what it means to be ‘European’ remains an unsolved debate to this day. Geographically, historically and culturally, Europe has never ceased to raise uncertainty, at times contradictions, and in any case continues to be disputed. Oskar Köhler, on this point, states that “neither in a geographical sense, nor in a historical view, is there a static definition of Europe.”33 European integration, however, brought about many changes on the continent, especially since the advent of the EU: a governing, overarching, supranational European political organization. Although levels of support have wavered, if nothing else it has set a goal for Europe and produced a set of shared symbols and values: a common economic, social, legal, and political framework incarnated and sustained by European institutions. Other more visible symbols include the single currency, a flag, a hymn, but also a long-standing debate on European identity, considered more and more by the EU Administration as a sine qua non condition for successful European integration.
When delving into academic literature on European identity, the reader quickly becomes submerged by a plethora of concepts and theories on offer, making an overview in the context of this Master’s thesis a pretentious and unreasonable endeavor. Awareness of this obstacle led Heiko Walkenhorst to publish an insightful study in 2009 that sheds some much-needed light on what he calls a “conceptual overstretch” 34 in the academic and political use of the term ‘European identity’. His work offers a typology of five different identity models that have driven the study of European identity: Historical-cultural identity, political-legal identity, social identity, international identity, and post-identity commonness. He concludes that the current trend in political
33 Introductory sentence of Oskar Köhler’s article “Europa”, in: Josef Hofer and Karl Rahner (eds.),
Lexicon für Theologie und Kirche, 2nd ed., (Freiburg: Herder-Verlag, 1986).
34 Heiko Walkenhorst, “The Conceptual Spectrum of European Identity – From Missing Link to
and academic circles demonstrates favoritism for the political-legal model, followed by historical-cultural and international accounts.
Below are short summaries of Walkenhorst’s models35:
1. Historical-cultural identity — This model of European identity refers to a perceived common European past with cultural roots and common values. Politicians use this concept in order to signal a historically grown Europeanness. Academics, such as politico-historians apply a primordialist approach.
2. Political-legal identity (also commonly referred to as “civic identity”) — In order to bypass the ethnic dimension in European identity, politicians favor a republican reading, which is based upon citizenship, representation and participation. The academic debate looks at the issue from the perspective of democratic theory and legitimacy.
3. Social identity — The sociological variant of European identity focuses on the popular basis of politics. In the political arena this approach is often referred to as a ‘people’s Europe’ approach. The academic approach is based on communitarian and constructivist theories.
4. International identity — In terms of social collectiveness, this is probably the weakest interpretation of European identity. In political discourse, it mainly indicates the need for a more united image of the EU in world politics.
5. Post-identity commonness — this model strives to avoid the identity-trap. Political models are inexistent. Political philosophers discuss this question on the grounds of post-modernist and post-nationalist theories.
Walkenhorst’s findings provide an interesting angle to understand how the debate on European identity evolved, and it is one that will be helpful in the following sections. For reasons of space and simplicity, however, I will not stray into a comparative study of views on the possible definition of European identity, and will only use Walkenhorst’s theory which is one that reflects current academic and political thoughts. I subscribe, in particular, with the views presented by authors such as Bo Stråth36, Ian
35 Ibid., 7 – 8. Also refer to Appendix a) for graph: “The Conceptual Spectrum of European Identity”. 36 Bo Stråth, “A European Identity: To the Historical Limits of a Concept”, European Journal of Social
Manners37, Furio Cerutti38, Sonia Lucarelli39, and contributions from Habermas that question the idea of a historical and culturally-rooted European collective identity. Many of these authors present European identity as a concept that is intrinsically linked to the process of European integration, and therefore underscore both its very political nature, but also its artificiality and incompatibility with the diverse European national identities it seeks to represent. Indeed, a growing number of scholars40 contest the importance of cultural and historical connotations in European identity, and agree that the debate surrounding European identity is essentially driven by political concerns rather than by a natural desire in Europeans to self-recognize as a single collective group, and to manifest this desire by transferring their allegiance to a new European polity. It is quite the contrary. Indeed, if we are to believe Sonia Lucarelli41, expressions of a collective European identity mainly appear in situations of distinction from a non-European ‘Other’, or in cases of foreign policy.
Even though current scholarship tends to favor the political-legal approach, the fact that the cultural and historical approach is still very much present in political discourse, however, makes its inclusion in this thesis a necessary measure. The goal in this next section is, therefore to show how present scholarship has worked towards dispelling the idea of a cultural and historical European identity as a basis for a collective identity. I present some of the main arguments employed by supporters of the historical-cultural model, and the counter-arguments from today’s scholarship. Obtaining a proper definition of European identity at the time of this thesis will ultimately provide an angle to explore its possible expressions in the Third Culture Kids community.
2.2.1. Historical-cultural European identity: The limits of a concept
As previously mentioned, it is generally contended that the historical-cultural and the political-model have been the most influential approaches in the study of European
37 Ian Manners, “The constitutive nature of values, images and principles in the European Union”, in
Values and Principles in European Union Foreign Policy, ed. Sonia Lucarelli and Ian Manners (New York: Routledge Advances in European Politics, 2006).
38 Furio Cerutti and Sonia Lucarelli (eds.), The Search for a European Identity: Values, policies and
legitimacy of the European Union (Routledge/Garnet series: Europe in the World, 2008).
39 Ibid.
40 See findings on the topic, inter alia, by Bo Strath, Jeffrey Checkel, Peter Katzenstein, Dimitris
Chryssochoou, Dario Castiglione, Gerard Delanty.
41 Furio Cerutti and Sonia Lucarelli (eds.), The Search for a European Identity: Values, policies and
identity. According to Walkenhorst, however, all five figure to a greater or lesser degree in both political debates and theoretical discourse. In his view, the notion of European identity was ultimately engaged to serve a political scheme given its sudden appearance in the context of a politically-integrating Europe, and is gradually becoming an alternative to what has previously been a prime form of identity in Europe: identification with the nation-state. Indeed, one of the pivotal questions in European construction is how national identities can be overcome – at least partially, to allow for the EU’s survival. The flexibility of European identity as an incomplete and undetermined ‘up for sale’ concept incidentally makes it highly attractive in the framework of European political integration. One of the specific reasons for this is that it provides a potential basis for post-national visions of Europe.
Using Walkenhorst’s words, the historical-cultural model of European identity is based on the premise that, “there is a missing or forgotten historical consciousness of being European among Europeans.”42 He explains that the political aim of such a reading of a historical European identity is essentially “to define ‘European integration’ as a geographically-restricted and culturally-defined project.”43 Those that advocate this model stress a common European heritage, and suggest that the continued success of the European project relies on the EU’s ability to revive this shared heritage or sense of
‘Gemeinschaft’ (community). In this model, Europe’s national identities and elements
of ‘Europeanness’ are unearthed in a number of commonalities with a view to construct a homogenous vision of Europe rooted in the past44. One of the main contestable aspects of this theory is that its exclusion-based pattern entails an aftertaste of ethnic and religious implications that undermines the EU’s ambition to represent democracy and inclusiveness. Drawing on prominent theories in the following sub-sections, I thus place emphasis on some dimensions of this historical-cultural approach that recent scholarship has deemed incompatible with practical considerations of a collective and inclusive European identity.
42 Heiko Walkenhorst, “The Conceptual Spectrum of European Identity – From Missing Link to
Unnecessary Evil” in Limerick Papers in Politics and Public Administration, n°3 (2009), 8.
43 Ibid.
44 Heinrich Schneider, “The dimensions of the historical and cultural core of a European identity,” in
Inclusion vs. Exclusion
Scholars, such as Craig Parsons45, entertain the myth of continental unity rooted in a pre-modern or pre-national age in Europe when the continent’s elites shared a common cultural, linguistic, philosophical and religious framework. This approach has been widely used in academic and political circles, and especially by supporters of deeper integration who identify a “European spirit”46 in various stages of European history including a Greco-Roman heritage, Humanism, XIXth century liberal-democratic traditions, but also in a Judeo-Christian roots. Walkenhorst explans that these attempts to construct a collective memory based on a religiously, culturally, or geographically defined European identity are misguided in that they seek to transform the reality of European history from a patchwork of exclusion-based societies to one of strong common foundations. In that sense, they fail to take into account the reality of exclusion that is highly characteristic of national identity in Europe, and essential to most processes of nation building. Said differently, European identity stems from a necessity, and not from a common will on the part of Europeans.
This view is shared by several other scholars. Ingmar Karlsson47, for one, highlights the contradiction surrounding Europe’s so-called “antique heritage”: one, for instance, cannot speak of a religious or moral-based heritage in Europe without being reminded of the massacres it produced, not only between Christian groups (Protestants and Catholics, etc.), but also against other religions (religious persecution towards Jews, past and current tension with the Muslim ‘Other’). A specific illustration of this dilemma is the slow-aging debate over Turkey’s membership in the EU.
Supporting the above-mentioned, other authors such as Bo Strath48 and Anthony Pagden49 highlighted a general and inherent predilection for demarcation of ‘Us’ from
45 Craig Parsons, A Certain Idea of Europe, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).
46 Vaclav Havel in a speech to the European Parliament (8 March 1994), accessed 30 April 2014.
http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=projevy&val=221_aj_projevy.html&typ=HTML
47 Ingmar Karlsson, “How to define European Identity today and in the future?” in Reflections on
European Identity, edited by Thomas Jansen (European Commission Forward Study Unit, 1999).
48 Bo Strath, “Multiple Europes” in Europe and the Other and Europe as the Other, ed. Bo Strath
(Brussels, Peter Lang, 2010), 420.
49 Anthony Pagden, The Idea of Europe: From Antiquity to the European Union (Cambridge University
‘Them’, rather than an acknowledgement of commonalities. This makes even the remotest evocation of a collective ‘European identity’, the likes of which could resemble or compete with national identity, the object of instant contestation, and thus invalidation. Gerard Delanty50 follows this trail of arguments by stating that a single European identity has never existed in the past. He argues instead that it is the product of a historically-fabricated idea that, starting as an idea, overtime became an ideology, and finally a geo-political reality. He believes that much of what is called European is available as a vague cultural, elite, and historical-laden notion that is present in the consciousness of Europeans and reemerges in certain conditions. However, it is not a binding factor, as “the idea of Europe failed to become a cohesive collective identity, for instead of a European identity configurations of national identities formed.”51
Because of the prominent feature of exclusion in national identities across Europe, these authors suggest that it is unreasonable to refer to the historical or cultural origins of a collective European identity. According to political psychologist Tom Bryder, collective identity, indeed, “would have to denote a form of sameness,”52 that many Europeans do not acknowledge.
An artificial construct
In essence, opponents to the historical-cultural model argue that the idea of Europe, by virtue of its predominantly exclusive cultures and regardless of the various political considerations it involved throughout history, in no way conveys a sentiment of desired ‘sameness’ or what Ernest Renan would refer to as a desire to live together as a nation53, except when in circumstantial opposition to a significant given “Other”. This trend poses a substantial problem in the framework of European integration, as it seems little in Europe’s past suggests a desire to recognize this sameness and experience common nationhood. Contributing to this notion of nationhood is Delanty’s claim to the importance of reference points54 - and particularly the discourse of elites throughout history – in shaping a Europe of ‘nations’. In that same vein, authors like Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities described the narrative of nationhood in Europe as
50 Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality (Palgrave Macmillan, 1995), 4. 51 Ibid.
52 Tom Bryder, “A Contribution from Political Psychology”, in Reflections on European Identity, ed.
Thomas Jansen (European Commission Forward Study Unit, 1999).
53 Ernest Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation ? (Fayard/Mille et une nuits, 1997).
carrying a strong artificial and reifying dimension: one of elite invention from ‘above’. Although ‘imagined’, he explains, they are nonetheless firmly anchored in the minds and hearts of many Europeans who, since the major nation-building events of the XIXth century, have accepted these constructs as having a natural history of their own. Subscribing to this logic of nation-building, Jürgen Habermas55 considers the search for European identity as no less than a new construct intended for a take-over of power wielded by a macro-organization and guided by its governmental and economic interests. As such, he believes the concept of European identity to have been instrumentalized and exploited to legitimize political mechanisms that were already in place. Ultimately, he rejects any reference to a historical or cultural European identity as nothing more than an artificial tool serving political and economic schemes – or what Delanty calls, “the core [penetrating] the periphery”56.
Essentially, what opponents to the cultural-historical model uphold is that the idea of European identity as possibly stemming from historical and cultural sources amounts to a process of reification. For them, Europe as a cultural and historical space has always been ambivalent and volatile, marked far more by antagonism, distinction, and rivalry between its peoples rather than sentiments of solidarity and unity. Distinction, more than unity, has consistently been a typical European feature, and as such, strong references of unity and solidarity simply cannot be found in Europe’s past. According to Thomas Risse57, the dimension of distinction tied to the notion of European identity incidentally poses a major issue in the EU’s quest to increase its legitimacy, and to create a European demos. As a collective identity, European identity indeed seeks to reconcile many ‘in-groups’ and ‘out-groups’. The ironic obstacle, he explains however, is that feelings of sameness felt by members of in-groups are strongest when in opposition to other ‘out-groups’.
Furthermore European identity especially as an ethno-culturalist notion has always been conflictual, and has been largely piloted by elite interests throughout history. Extending this pattern of exclusion in the framework of European union, the
55 Jürgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, vol. II, (Frankfurt-am-Main: Suhrkamp
1981), 175.
56 Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality (Palgrave Macmillan, 1995), 7. 57 Thomas Risse, A community of Europeans? Transnational Identities and Public Spheres (Cornell
politicization of this historical-cultural idea of Europe, according to Delanty, amounts not to a definition of what Europe’s peoples have in common, but rather what separates them from the non-European world. As such, the historical-cultural model, according to Walkenhorst, cannot be used as a unifying factor in the European context.
These last remarks stress the greater relevance of the political-legal model. In the absence of unifying factors in Europe’s past, a focus on the nature of the EU’s political identity provides a future-oriented and factual alternative to an increasingly contested European historical and cultural identity.
2.2.2. European political identity
European identity as a political matter
According to Walkenhorst, the political-legal European identity model defines the European Union, “as a civil power which has its roots in the classical-liberal tradition of equality and law.”58 As a model that is free of ethnic and cultural considerations, it allows for a high level of inclusiveness in reference to democratic principles such as representation and participation, the rule of law, citizenship and constitutionalism. Supporting this, Sven Vitse59 from Utrecht University contends that the concept of European identity is highly political in nature and intrinsically tied to the European project, far more so than the product of a commonly-acknowledged historical and cultural heritage. According to him, European identity is indeed inseparable from the existence of the EU and the process of European integration. He explains that, along with integration, the question of what member States had in common aside from their membership raised concerns. With antipathy growing towards the European project, especially since the Treaty of Maastricht, it became increasingly clear that neo-functionalist predictions had been misguided, and that a European demos emerging alongside a unified market had failed to occur. Walkenhorst in turn concedes that the focus of European identity was, and still is, largely driven by political concerns, and by
58 Heiko Walkenhorst, “The Conceptual Spectrum of European Identity – From Missing Link to
Unnecessary Evil” in Limerick Papers in Politics and Public Administration, n°3 (2009), 10 – 11.
59 Sven Vitse, “The (de)construction of European identity in contemporary fiction”, in Journal of Dutch
the EU’s failure to convince Europeans of its legitimacy and thus to create a true European public that would recognize itself as such. A culmination of this absence of identification to the EU and the question of what is ‘European’ appeared, inter alia, in the French and Dutch vote against the Constitutional Treaty in 2005, and through the standstill on Turkey’s access to membership of the EU. The economic crisis further sped up already dwindling support for the EU since 2008, and has presently led to a sudden increase in populist tendencies across Europe that threaten the EU’s existence even more.
Amidst this degrading climate of mistrust towards the EU and the revival of nationalistic sentiments, the EU Administration has adopted a rather paradoxal discourse, especially in its references to European identity. According to the European Commission60, European identity lies in Europe’s cultural heritage, and this heritage, diverse though it may be, is one that all Europeans share. Since the Maastricht Treaty, the Commission has made “unity in diversity” its new watchword as a basis to promote cooperation, subsidiarity and solidarity, and to avoid “fragmentation, chaos, and conflict.”61 With regard to the previous section, however, it already seems evident that these last goals in no wise satisfy the features of exclusion and distinction that characterize European national identities.
The Janus-faced nature of the EU’s discourse therefore interestingly reveals the dual complexity of the debate. Put simply, this involves finding a balance by respecting the national and cultural identities of Europe on one hand, all the while promoting identification to the EU as a supranational entity on the other. Resulting from this dilemma is an underlying ‘necessity’ to ‘find’ European identity in order to preserve cooperation and cohesion in the European Union. From this perspective, there is little doubt that European identity is artificial – but not unlike its national counterparts in that sense if we are to believe the aforementioned views. As explained by authors such as
60 Deborah Parsons, “Nationalism or Continentalism. Representing Heritage culture for a New Europe”,
in Beyond Boundaries. Textual Rrepresentations of European Identity, ed. by Andy Hollis (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), 1.
61 Citation from keynote address by Jacques Santer, President of the European Commission to the World
Anthony Smith62, Kostakopoulou63, and Christopher Lord64, the substance of this new identity, lacking geographical and ethnic points of reference that previously contributed to strengthening collective identities, is essentially too weak to compete with national identities. This, along with the complexity of multi-levels of governance, helps explain why attempts to consolidate European identity since 1993 (European citizenship, symbols of the EU), have failed to produce conclusive results.
The relevance of European identity
Most scholars that have connected European identity to a political process, such as Chris Shore65 and Bo Stråth66, agree that the debate on European identity has been the key to political integration since the European Community Conference in Copenhagen (1973), and originated from a desire to show a unified image of the Community on the international stage. As such, it takes root in a political context, and yet not all agree on the motive for its promotion, or the function it should perform. According to Viktoria Kaina and Ireneusz Karolewski67, it is possible to identify a number of conflicting views on the relevance of a collective European identity within academia. A first group, involving the two above-mentioned scholars, believe European identity to possess a utilitarian function that emerged in a crisis-ridden world order with a view to consolidate Europe’s competitiveness and presence on the international stage. A second group, involving scholars such as Scharpf, Zürn, and Grimm, opposes this instrumentalized view of European identity, and instead presents it as an essential and natural condition for further integration in an increasingly large and heterogeneous European Union. In a political context, they believe that collective identity is an important prerequisite for democratic decision-making, and a key part of forming a bond of trust between the represented and their representatives. It also creates the necessary social cohesion to solve problems in a spirit of shared goals and interests, and
62 Anthony Smith, “National Identity and the Idea of European Unity”, in International Affairs, Vol. 68,
n°1 (1992), 55 – 76, accessed 30 April 2014. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-5850%28199201%2968%3A1%3C55%33ANIATIO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z
63 Theodora Kostakopoulou, Citizenship, Identity, and Immigration in the European Union: Between Past
and Future (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001).
64 Christopher Lord, Democracy in the European Union, (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998). 65 Chris Shore, Building Europe. The Cultural Politics of European Integration (London: Routledge,
2000), 19.
66 Bo Stråth, “A European Identity: To the Historical Limits of a Concept”, European Journal of Social
Theory 5 (2002), 387, accessed 30 April 2014, doi: 10.1177/136843102760513965.
67 Viktoria Kaina and Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski, “EU Governance and European Identity”, Living
with the consciousness of a common fate. In these two cases, however, neither group opposes the existence of the EU, but rather adopts a pragmatic and problem-solving approach to its contested legitimacy.
In strong disagreement with those mentioned above, another group of scholars including Thomas Risse68, challenges the idea of a shared European collective identity. Their central argument questions the need for a uniform identity in Europe that would surpass national identity in Europe. In their view, the idea of European identity amounts to a process of Europeanization of national identities, and although the EU and Europe may, to a certain extent, become part of people’s sense of belonging, confusion over the EU’s ambiguous role and conflicting regulatory policies might hinder people’s sense of identification, driving them closer to nationalistic tendencies.
Whatever the specific view, however, most scholars of European integration agree that the EU’s nature and definition has changed from its early years. Drifting further and further away from economic agency of its infant stage, it increasingly resembles an awkward superstate teenager who, albeit dependent upon its member States, leans further towards emancipation and experiencing a full-fledged identity crisis. On this point, Kaina and Karolewski69 conclude that the question of the EU’s nature is of little importance – whether it is described as a multi-level system of governance or a political system – given that features of a national polity are already present. According to them, the EU is a “polity in between,” and can be analyzed as a “political collectivity inasmuch as a supranational authority.”70 Integration itself, according to Ernest Haas, ultimately amounts to a process, “whereby political actors in several distinct national settings are persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectations and political activities toward a new centre, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over the pre-existing national states.”71 If we abide by this definition, a tentative conclusion could suggest that the outcome of European integration is indeed to supersede the existing
68 Thomas Risse, A Community of Europeans? Transnational Identities and Public Spheres (Cornell
University Press, 2010).
69 Viktoria Kaina and Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski, “EU Governance and European Identity”, Living
Reviews in European Governance, Vol. 8, n°1 (2013), 6, accessed 30 April 2014, doi: 10.12942/lreg-2013-1
70 Ibid.
71 Ernest Haas, The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social, and Economic Forces 1950 - 57 (Standford
configuration of nation States on the continent. However, the question of whether national identities will follow suit, and under which conditions is debatable.
The content I have listed above has revealed a number of essential points, central to which is the belief that the debate on European identity emerged in the context of European integration. Whether it was triggered by a political agenda or is a natural need, is a view that divides supporters of the political-legal model. What is important to retain, however, is that the EU increasingly looks like a State with its own emerging ‘culture’, but it lacks many features that would allow it to compete with national identities in Europe: especially a cohesive historical and cultural background. Another point to retain is that there is strong resistance to the idea of a European polity that would be a substitute to national systems. As such, conceptualizing European identity in collective terms is, for the most part, undesired by Europeans.
However, these scholars also revealed that traces – or attempts – of collective European identity appear in the political ‘culture’ of pan-European organizations. Although they amount to little more than a legal system and a number of founding values, they are nonetheless a starting point. Considering that European identity as a cultural and historical identity is too contested to evoke sameness, it cannot easily be used as a building block. If anything, European identity is, for the time being, tied to this value-based political and legal system.
The value-based identity of pan-European organizations
This last approach has been the most acclaimed over the past years. Just recently, at the occasion of the first-ever live debate for the European Commission presidency, candidates all called for deeper integration. Guy Verhofstadt, in particular, commented on the need to “(…) reinvent and regain sovereignty altogether on the European level.” He showed his support for deeper integration as a necessary condition to safeguard Europe’s prosperity – a need that the economic crisis highlighted72. This hallmark debate provides greater confirmation that the idea of European identity is essentially driven by practical needs. Ironically, one could suggest, Europeans favor the EU insofar
72 Debate between EU presidency candidates, broadcasted on 14/04/2014. Time of comment:
Approximately 53’20. Accessed on Euronews website on 2 May 2014.
as it provides prosperity, but at the same time reject the conditions that would allow it to further this prosperity. Indeed, there is a widespread belief shared by supporters of deeper integration that this same prosperity would be made possible through a greater transfer of sovereignty. Sovereignty, however, happens to constitute a central pillar of national identity as the guarantor of its definition and protection.
Attempts to remedy this dilemma have been made of late. A major proponent of this transfer of sovereignty is Jürgen Habermas who proposed a post-national, universalist form of democratic political allegiance based on the principle of constitutional patriotism. His belief is that Europeans, although marked by their diversity, can converge towards a number of distinctive European values that would allow for the emergence of a shared political identity. The practical success of this theory would involve the necessity to balance between a ‘thin’ model of political integration based on cosmopolitan values, and a ‘thick’ European awareness. As such, it attempts to reconcile universal humanistic principles with particularistic features. Lastly, he places emphasis on the concept of communicative rationality based on the ability of humans to reach consensus. In Zur Verfassung Europas, he namely supports equipping European institutions with a normative foundation in order to consolidate their post-war achievements (a step was taken in this direction through the Maastricht Treaty, but has been contested in ensuing treaties).
On a similar note, Ian Manners defines the constitutive nature of the EU’s political identity as characterized by,
‘cosmopolitical supranationality’ – the belief in multilayered politics shaped by a vibrant international civil society, more equal for women, the pooling of sovereignty, and supranational law. European cosmopolitical supranationality involves the recognition that domestic politics and international politics are deeply interdependent. It also reflects the post-war birth of cosmopolitan Europe as a reaction to the modern Europe of nation-states.73
According to Manners, the process of transferring sovereignty to a supranational political entity has made European states more accepting of post-national politics. Using
73 Ian Manners, “The constitutive nature of values, images and principles in the European Union,” in
Pascal Lamy’s words, he further describes the perspectives offered by cosmopolitics as amounting to a process of “thinking globally and acting locally”74 in a new world order.
Presently in Europe, two organizations have laid the basis for this political identity: The Council of Europe, and the European Union. A look at the websites of each organization provides the following descriptions on this point:
Under the section “Values of the Union”75:
The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values, which are set out in Article I-2, are common to the Member States. Moreover, the societies of the Member States are characterised by pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men. These values play an important role, especially in two specific cases. Firstly, under the procedure for accession set out in Article I-58, any European State wishing to become a member of the Union must respect these values in order to be considered eligible for admission. Secondly, failure by a Member State to respect these values may lead to the suspension of that Member State's rights deriving from membership of the Union (Article I-59).
Concerning the Council of Europe76:
The Council of Europe and the European Union share the same fundamental values – human rights, democracy and the rule of law – but are separate entities which perform different, yet complementary, roles.
Focusing on those core values, the Council of Europe brings together governments from across Europe – and beyond – to agree minimum legal standards in a wide range of areas. It then monitors how well countries apply the standards that they have chosen to sign up to. It also provides technical assistance, often working together with the European Union, to help them do so. A 2008 Eurobarometer report provided further information on the relationship between EU citizens and these values, by questioning EU27 citizens on their perception and opinion of European values77. The values that were cited as being most ‘European’
74 Ibid., 28.
75Europa.eu, “The founding principles of the Union,” accessed 5 May 2014.
http://europa.eu/scadplus/constitution/objectives_en.htm
76 Council of Europe. “The Council of Europe and the European Union: different roles, shared values,”
accessed 5 May 2014. http://hub.coe.int/web/coe-portal/european-union
77 European Commission, Eurobarometer 69: Values of Europeans (Brussels: TNS Opinion and Social,
Spring 2008), accessed 6 May 2014.
were the following: (1) Peace, (2) Human Rights, (3) Respect for human life, (4) Democracy, (5) Rule of law, (6) Individual freedom, (7) Equality, (8) Tolerance, (9) Solidarity.
What is clear is that these last values are closely tied to the core values of pan-European organizations, and it can be inferred that their acknowledgement by Europeans stems from their dissemination by these same organizations. Also, the Eurobarometer survey showed that a majority of Europeans believes these values to be shared by Europeans, thus confirming their possible unifying properties in a prospect of identity-building.
3. Third Culture Kids: A case study, “…what are its expressions within the TCK
community…?”
3.1. Introduction
The purpose of this case study is to explore possible expressions of European identity within a sample population that shares many of its core features.
As I have shown in the introduction, the debate on European identity involves a number of complex factors and conditions, in which the role of identity at its many stages and levels must be acknowledged. The process of integrating national structures into a globalized system of exchanges and interdependencies has disrupted identities in Europe that were previously integrated in a nation-state setting. As a result, these traditional overarching reference points are rapidly losing their orientation and relevance. The central question in this context according to the research group EuroIdentities78 (which, I remind the reader, is also my research question) asks how people balance divergent or discrepant collective demands and how they handle the paradoxes caused by contradictory collective concerns and loyalties.
In the first part of the literature review, I drew a timeline of evolutions in the field of identity and European identity, primarily drawing on scholarship from social politics, integration theories, and political psychology. I analyzed the framework in which identity became a subject of study since the mid-XXth century, and how growing awareness of the individual has made identity a highly popular and misused topic today. I then placed these findings in the context of European integration and observed that the idea of ‘Europe’ and the concept of ‘European identity’ take root in a number of circumstances and practical needs, more so than in a historical and cultural sentiment of belonging to a European community. Much like other processes of nation-building, it appears that the evolutions of the European project have lent many characteristics of a State to the EU, but its complex nature, halfway between a supranational authority and an intergovernmental organization, precludes it from attracting wide-scale popular allegiance. This is especially true in the face of powerful intermediates such as its nation-state constituents. As such, the concept of European identity and pan-European
organizations, namely the EU, are intrinsically linked. A result of this is the view that a would-be collective European identity is a construct, and a perceived necessity for the European project. The question of whether it functions as a common reference point for EU citizens is, however, highly debatable and unlikely at this time. In response to this, the EU’s Administration has attempted to reconcile conflicting national loyalties and allegiances by adopting a paradoxal model of ‘unity in diversity’. Determining where unity can be located in this diversity, however, lies at the core of the debate on European identity. It is a question that has been addressed by scholars such as Jürgen Habermas who proposed, as I showed, a thin model of integration focused on the core values of pan-European organizations so as to avoid upsetting Europe’s nation-state configuration while still allowing integration to continue. Of relevance now to this thesis is to assess the potential of a value-based civic model to attract identification from EU citizens.
Following the leads provided by scholars of the EuroIdentities79 research group which stress the importance of one’s social environment in strengthening a sense of belonging, I explore expressions of this European identity within the Third Culture Kids community in Strasbourg. Having experienced all at once a multicultural environment in an openly asserted European capital, and possessing strong features of post-national identity, their views on the matter may provide further understanding of how individuals cope with multiple collective identities, and what conditions favor post-national sentiments in a European setting.
3.1.1. Overview and methodology
I showed in the previous chapter that European identity is best described as a political and value-laden identity. It is one that calls for future consolidation and that carries a strong post-national dimension that would possibly appeal to TCKs. My belief was that better understanding of the debate on European identity would allow for projections on the possible emergence of a collective identity shared by Europeans. In seeking to make these projections, the study addressed three main questions: (1) How do TCKs perceive the process of European unification and integration? (2) How do TCKs feel about
79 EuroIdentities web page, “Methodology”, accessed 15 May 2014.
national identity in Europe? (3) How do TCKs perceive the concept of European identity as a political identity with post-national features?
The present chapter will describe the research methodology I employed to find answers to these questions, and provides a description of various relevant points pertaining to the study. (3.1) In a first step, I offer an explanation of the rationale for my research approach, (3.2) after which I provide in-depth contextual information regarding my research sample and site. (3.3) In a third step, I give an overview of my research design, as well as my (3.4) methods of data collection, followed by my (3.5) methods for data analysis and synthesis. After this, I deal with the various (3.6) limits of the study. (3.7) Lastly, I conclude the chapter with a brief summary.
3.1.2. Rationale for case study methodology
Methodology in the social sciences offers a wide array of approaches and methods to investigate group phenomena. Within the framework of qualitative interviewing, a case study seemed to be the best-suited approach to this study given that it provides first-hand and insightful information on the target group under investigation. According to Jonathan Moses and Torbjørn Knutsen, case studies are “histories with a point,”80 and the case under investigation is of interest because of a “larger theoretical concern,”81 which, in the case of this thesis, aims to discover more on the possible realization of European identity.
Case studies, they continue, strive to “isolate particular connections in the expectation that they might turn out to be causal,” thus allowing the researcher to “unearth evidence of a hypothesized causal mechanism buried in the experience of a particular case.” In other words, case studies allow the researcher to explore patterns based on the assumption that such patterns exist as part of a greater mechanism. The choice of a case study in this thesis is interesting because it offers a practical account of an existing pattern of identification (TCKs) in a given space (the European Union) at a given time (that of this thesis). A proper analysis of this framework should ultimately provide a basis to achieve greater understanding of reasons for rejection or subscription to the notion of collectiveness in the EU.
80 Jonathan W. Moses and Torbjørn L. Knutsen, “History, Interviews and Case Studies,” in Ways of
Knowing, Second Edition (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), 133.
