IME · Identities and modernities in Europe: European and national identity construction programmes and politics, culture, history and religion

IME investigates European identities, defined as a wide range of definitions of ‘us, the Europeans’ proposed and acted upon by various actors in and around the current European Union (EU), in particular in nine cases: Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Drawing from the theory of multiple modernities, the project addresses three major issues regarding European identities: what they are, in what ways they have been formed and what trajectories they may take from now on. Through a set of nine case studies, IME first investigates the diversity of European identities as it manifests in the nine cases. It then examines the various ways in which these diverse self-definitions have been formulated and maintained in different societal, cultural and systemic settings and in which they have been interacting with various processes and forces. It then aims to identify commonalities among diverse European identities in nine countries through a series of thematic comparisons of the cases, in order to provide the basis for grounded projection of possible trajectories European identities may take as the processes of European integration continue. The project challenges the conventional wisdom about European identities and the teleological implication which lies behind much of the discussions of European identities and aims to offer valuable insights into the contexts in which various policies of identity construction are pursued.