National identities in the age of globalisation: the case of Western Europe

In an age of increasing globalisation and political fragmentation, does the nation have the relevance it once had? Is the re-scaling of political and economic processes associated with a similar re-scaling of national identities? The aim of the present paper is to offer an answer to these two questions on the basis of both quantitative and qualitative data recently collected for Western Europe. Cross-country trends for both national pride and national attachment are analyzed through Eurobarometer Standard surveys. Furthermore, the notion of national attachment is discussed in relation to qualitative data collected in four regional case-studies in Western Europe. On the basis of this analysis I argue that, when viewed ‘from below’, i.e. from the eyes of ordinary citizens, national identity continues to shape the predominant ways in which people make sense of themselves and others

On territory, the nation-state and the crisis of the hyphen

In an epoch of networks, flows and global mobility, the notion of territory as a politico-institutional bounded space needs further investigation. Besides studying territory as a symbolic resource in nationalist discourses, a control device in the hands of the state or a 'spatial fix' in the process of capital accumulation and reproduction, geographers should also explore how territory remains implicated in and implicates discourses and practices of societal integration, belonging and loyalty beyond the national rhetoric of 'one territory, one people'. The article illustrates this argument by focusing on the case of Western Europe. © The Author(s), 2009

EUropean attachment and meanings of EUrope. A qualitative study in the EU-15

The present article explores meanings of EUrope as they emerged in individual interviews and focus-groups organized around the question of European attachment. The article shows that the ways people make sense of EUrope can be divided into three major categories: cultural-national, cultural-transnational, and functionalutilitarian. Cultural-national referents describe EUrope through the prism of the nation-state and reproduce the isomorphism between territory and identity which has characterized, at least in theory, the nation-state itself. Cultural-transnational referents present EUrope as a normative model for the rest of the world, a model for ‘another’ globalization, more social and less liberalist, and a champion of humanitarianism and international peace. Functional-utilitarian referents address EUrope as a space which could help the individual and/or the collectivity to which the individual belongs to enhance their well-being. In this latter case, EUrope resonates with a post-national space, one which goes beyond the isomorphism between territory and identity. The article argues that the reasons why people might identify with and support EUrope are different, and not always driven by feelings of emotional attachment. As such, the article brings empirical evidence to the thesis that a EUropean demos, understood as a sense of collective identity, should not be considered as a necessary condition for the existence of a EUropean polity

'OccupyBufferZone': practices of borderline resistance in a space of exception

This article focuses on the practices of resistance organised by a group of Cypriot activists in the Buffer Zone that separates the island of Cyprus into two sovereign entities, the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Being a space where the territorialising norm of these two entities is suspended, the Buffer Zone constitutes a space of exception. By drawing on a post-colonial reading of this Agambenian notion, the article analyses the specifics of a 'terrain of resistance' deliberately located in the exception. It argues that rather than being a dispossessing condition, the exception might actually be empowering, because it offers the activists a terrain from which to contest the very norm that they are escaping. The article also critically reflects on the limits of this tactic, by revealing how power might adopt counter-exceptions aimed at reterritorialising exceptional spaces that no longer work to its advantage. The OccupyBufferZone (OBZ) experience also allows for a series of theoretical considerations that can illuminate further the notion of 'terrain of resistance'

Territory and territoriality

Territory and territoriality are generally regarded as key concepts in political geography. While anglophone geographers have privileged a rather politico‐institutional understanding, closely related to the state and the notion of sovereignty, francophone geographers have privileged a social and semiotic approach, which emphasizes the role people play in the production of territories. After having been dismissed as a relic of the past in an age of flows and networks, and obfuscated by the hegemonic role place has played in geography, territory seems to have attracted new interest and gained momentum in the discipline since 2009.<br

The multicultural dilemma: between normative and practical reasoning

The multicultural dilemma: between normative and practical reasonin

Bringing the demos back in: people's views on 'EUropean identity'

The creation of a EUropean demos is often debated by referring to forms of ethnic or civic identities. The present article aims to expose the theoretical shortcomings of this dichotomous approach, which confines the complexity of EUrope within a simplifying methodological nationalism. By relying on empirical data collected in four different EUropean regions, the article points to the relevance of a functional or utilitarian rationale which EUropean interviewees use to justify the existence of EUrope. Although this rationale does not obliterate cultural and civic narrations of EUrope, I would argue that it invites to reconsider the traditional role played by identities in the construction of political institutions. Accordingly, I believe that scholars should take more seriously the metaphor ‘EUrope as a laboratory’ – a convenient, but often empty metaphor

The neoliberal culturalist nation: voices from Italy

The impact of neo-liberal globalisation on the nation-state has been extensively studied in terms of politico-economic restructuring and forms of governmentality and securitisation. While the former speaks of a process of de-nationalisation, the latter brings about a re-nationalisation process. In both cases, though, the focus has only been on one component of the nation-state, i.e. the state. The nation has either been treated as a given backdrop or merely ignored. This articles aims to bring the nation back as a way to better contextualise practices of socio-spatial exclusion associated with one particular aspect of neoliberal globalisation, namely international migration. By analysing parliamentary debates in Italy between 1986 and 2014, the article explores the intersections between neoliberalism and cultural essentialism as they conflate in what I call the ‘neoliberal culturalist nation’. This construct permits to identify the role that a national culturalist imaginary plays in prompting and justifying governmental practices of securitization, which in turn are implicated in the production of vulnerable and expendable labour force. Moreover, it reveals how a neoliberal workfarist and individualised logic is functional to the ‘normalisation’ of the foreign immigrant and the reproduction of the national titular group. My argument is that a national culturalist imaginary exists in a mutually reinforcing relation with, rather than in opposition to neoliberalism. Far from keeping nation and state as ontologically distinct or theorising their decoupling, the article points instead to a renewed spatial isomorphism between nation and state which comes indeed to epitomise the very process of current re-nationalisation

The face of the nation. Troubling the sameness-strangeness divide in the age of migration

Over the last two decades, banal and everyday nationalism have been the main theoretical and methodological approaches for studying how nations are reproduced ‘from below’. The present article advances this literature by paying close attention to racially-differentiated subjects and, more precisely, to subjects who are perceived to look different from, but sound like the national majority group. Building on the feminist attention to the corporeal, I argue that face-to-face encounters with the simultaneous embodiment of (somatic) strangeness and (linguistic) sameness generate a sense of surprise which interrupts the reproduction of the nation. This, in turn, allows for the ‘troubling’ of the very identity category (nation) which both banal and everyday nationalism avoid interrogating directly. I support and illustrate this argument by focusing on the case of the children of migrants born and raised in Italy and their personal experiences in mundane settings. The article discusses the implications of this short circuit in the banal and everyday processes of national reproduction in terms of potential openings of the nation to more inclusive forms

Exploring the demands of assimilation among white ethnic majorities in Western Europe

Since the mid-1990s, assimilation has gradually regained momentum as both a normative and an analytical concept for understanding the ways in which migrants are incorporated into societies at large. Although scholars have investigated various dimensions of this process, they have tended to privilege the experience of migrants themselves. Comparatively little attention has been dedicated to the perspective of the dominant groups, particularly in relation to what ethnic majority people demand that migrants do in order to be accepted. This article explores these demands of assimilation through qualitative data collected among white local elites in four regional case-studies in Western Europe. The analysis reveals a different picture from the one usually portrayed by 'new assimilation theory'. Accordingly, I suggest rethinking assimilation in ways which incorporate more fully the plurality of demands put forward by dominant ethnic groups. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC