Identities under Threat

Abstract

East Central Europe has an exceptionally broad, deep and centuries-long legacy of ethnic mixing, one that was shattered by radical and often violent ‘unmixing’, along theoretically sharper ethnic lines after 1945, on Stalin’s instructions. These legacies mean categories of belonging are especially freighted, and politically scrutinised right into the present. It also makes the region particuarly relevant to the study of complex, hybrid phenomena that result, but that are hard to categorise in strict ethno-national terms as ‘German’, ‘Polish’, ‘Romanian’ and so on. This talk presents case studies drawn from the speakerandapos;s recent research on the region; however they are presented in the light of 2016's political events and their wider ramifications for identity politics right across Europe, including the United Kingdom following the so-called "Brexit" vote.</p