Europe: Imagination and Practices. Introduction I.

Abstract

The EU constitutional crisis has shown how “Europe” is far from being a homogeneous entity. It is a mix of countries both large and small, old and new, that perceive and present themselves in different ways, and use different culturallyconstructed strategies and tactics in relation to an imagined “Europeanness.” Based on concrete practices between an EU member state and a non–member state, the author discusses Eurocentrism and the relations between official and subcultural discourse. This also involves examining selected texts in several books (Wolfe, Kockel, and Vivod) and issues raised by scholarly groups and their discourse regarding where the center of Europe lies, the relations between old member states and candidate countries, and desire and uneasiness as the fundamental ambivalence of old and new EU countries.

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Kriza ob sprejemanju ustave Evropske unije je pokazala, kako je »Evropa« še daleč od tega, da bi bila homogena celota. Je zbir držav, majhnih in velikih, starih in novih, ki se dojemajo na različne načine in uporabljajo različno kulturno konstruirane prakse in taktike v razmerju z zamišljeno »evropskostjo«. Avtor na primeru konkretnih praks med članico in nečlanico EU razpravlja o evrocentričnosti in razmerju med uradnim in subkulturnim diskurzom; pri pregledu nekaterih besedil v knjigi (Wolfe, Kockel, Vivod) pa o vprašanjih znanstvenih skupnosti in njihovih diskurzov; o tem, kje je središče Evrope; o razmerju med starimi članicami in kandidatkami za članstvo ter in o želji in nelagodju kot temeljni ambivalenci starih in novih držav EU.