Struggle and banality of belonging to Europe : Cultural Europeanization from the perspective of the Central and East European citizens

Abstract

The European Union (EU) has developed cultural policy initiatives that seek to promote cultural Europeanization with the purpose of constructing European identity narratives and facilitating citizens’ sense of belonging to Europe and the EU. The article focuses on the citizens’ perspective to cultural Europeanization through ethnographic research on one central action in the EU cultural policy, European Heritage Label (EHL). We analyse the interviews conducted in selected EHL sites with Central and East European (CEE) citizens who were visiting the sites as well as with cultural heritage practitioners working at three EHL sites located in CEE countries. We ask how the practitioners and the visitors engage with European identity narratives and elaborate their European belonging. We especially scrutinize how everyday encounters and experiences, such as mobility, shape identifications with ‘Europe’ and perceptions of what is ‘European’. The interviews are interpreted in the theoretical framework of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ European. This framework indicates a centuries-long liminal position of the Central and Eastern Europe. It enables us to scrutinize CEE citizens’ sense of belonging to Europe in an intersection of dual Europeanization, i.e. cultural Europeanization and ‘Europeanization’ of the CEE countries to overcome this liminal position and become ‘true’ Europeans.