State of the Art Report

Abstract

This paper illustrates the research questions, the main underlying concepts and the relevant literature of the EUCROSS project. The project examines the relationship between the manifold activities of EU residents (nationals, mobile EU citizens, and thirdcountry nationals) across the borders of nation states and their collective identities. Specifically, the project intends to:

1) map out individuals’ cross-border practices as an effect of European integration and globalisation; 2) assess the impact of these practices on collective identifications (also controlling for the inverse causal process). Which cross-border practices are more likely to foster some form of identification with the EU – e.g., contacts with foreign friends and/or unwanted foreigners, periods of labour mobility abroad, business and tourist travel, or consumer relations with international companies? Under which contextual and individual conditions do these experiences promote a higher sensitivity to ‘Europe’ – rather than the ‘local’ or the ‘global’ – as an identity catalyst? Which social groups are more prone to adopt a European mindset in the wake of the Europeanisation of everyday life?

In addressing these questions, we use the concepts of ‘Europeanisation’, ‘European identity’, ‘cross-border practices’ and ‘cosmopolitanism’ drawing on and elaborating from their meaning in the contemporary social science literature – and especially in sociology, anthropology, political science and social psychology. Overall, we find that seldom are these concepts treated altogether specifying the link between spatially and culturally situated behaviours on the one hand and collective identifications and value orientations on the other. Moreover, few studies examine socio-cultural Europeanisation and supernational identifications comparatively, and none includes simultaneously native and immigrant populations, who in fact may attest of different modalities in which the behaviour-identity link can take place.