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Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

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Imagining Europe: everyday narratives in European border communities

Heidi Armbruster; Craig Rollo; Ulrike H. Meinhof Online publication date: 03 June 2010

To cite this Article Armbruster, Heidi , Rollo, Craig and Meinhof, Ulrike H.(2003) 'Imagining Europe: everyday narratives

in European border communities', Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 29: 5, 885 899 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/1369183032000149622 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183032000149622

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Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 29, No. 5: 885899

September 2003

Imagining Europe: everyday narratives in European border communities

Heidi Armbruster, Craig Rollo and Ulrike H. Meinhof

Abstract This article examines the role of Europe in our border narratives. One of the most striking parallels across our entire data set was the absence of Europe or Europeanness as a self-chosen category of identication. In contrast to other categories, European references only appeared in response to direct questions by the interviewers. This article shows how people conceptualised Europe and the EU, once invited to do so by the interviewer. Both Westerners (all citizens of EU member-states) and Easterners (all citizens of ascendant EU member-states) anchored their views in distinctly local contexts. At the same time there were many narrative and discursive overlaps on either side: Westerners often construed a congruence between Europe and the EU and used this thematic eld to dene their own national and socio-economic identity. For many Easterners the links between Europe and the EU were much less clear and the topic provided a discursive eld within which people articulated a sense of economic and political disempowerment. In both cases Europe generated the clearest sense of belonging only when it came into play as an out-grouping device against immigrants who are deemed non-Europeans. KEYWORDS: EUROPE; EUROPEAN UNION; EU ENLARGEMENT; EASTWEST IDENTITIES

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Introduction
For half a century, the process of European political integration has resulted in radical transformations of the political and economic structures of many countries in Europe, affecting millions of citizens in their public and private lives. Studies of these ongoing processes have arisen from within every discipline of the social sciences, ranging from those whose main interest lies with the structural, institutional or legal consequences of integration right across to those whose main concerns are with the experiences, feelings and attitudes of the citizens of this new and expanding geopolitical space (Dedman 1996; Eder and Giesen 2001; Heffernan 1998; Mair and Zielonka 2002; ONeill 1996; Tagil 1999; van der Dussen and Wilson 1993). One question has aroused particular interest in the last decade: that of cultural identity and identication (Brinker-Gabler and Smith 1997; Cederman 2000; Delanty 1995; Goddard et al. 1994; Holmes and Murray 1999; Jenkins and Sofos 1996; Nelson et al. 1992; Paasi 2001). Alongside the political moves towards greater integration within the current and future European Union, is there a new sense of a transnational community which the people living within the respective nation-states and sub-national regions are experiencing and constructing? Is there, to adapt Benedict Andersons seminal expression (1983), an emerging imagined Europe which the citizens of the
ISSN 1369-183X print/ISSN 1469-9451 online/03/050885-15 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1369183032000149622 Carfax Publishing

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current European Union and of those countries wishing to join it, embrace and construct? Does Europe create and conrm a sense of belonging or identity for their everyday lives? And if so, how does such a European identity relate to other more traditional forms of local, regional or national afliations? This concluding article will throw light on such processes by reporting the results of research on several sets of split (former) border communities on the eastern and south-eastern borders of the current EU, including the now dissolved former East- and West-German border. With their geographical location on parts of the former Iron Curtain, our communities share a remarkable geopolitical position. It is remarkable in the many changes it imposed on the daily lives of the borderland inhabitants, but also in its wider symbolic value for European identity after 1945. In 2000, when we conducted our research, our informants had already lived a post-Iron Curtain life for ten years, which had entailed new experiences of encounter and transnational mobility. It also entailed being at the forefront of yet another geopolitical change, namely the imminent enlargement of the EU and through this a widening and redening of a common European space. So what does being European mean to people living along this border, which so recently was a geopolitical faultline and which will soon be reduced to an internal EU boundary? Whilst many social sciences have well-established quantitative and qualitative instruments for measuring and assessing the legal, economic and political consequences of integration and enlargement, it is much harder to understand and even harder still to measure these processes of identity. Existing quantitative instruments, most notably the Eurobarometer, which try to assess the relative signicance of regional, national or European identity for its informants are deeply problematical in question design and underlying assumptions (for a detailed critique see Bruter 2003). Our approach constitutes a radical departure in design and methodology from traditional questionnaires and mass-surveys in several substantive ways. We assumed and demonstrated that cultural identities and identication processes are context-dependent, exible, multiple, only partially conscious, potentially contradictory and discursively constructed (see Meinhof 2002; Meinhof and Galasinski 2000, 2002a, 2002b). One major feature in this context-dependency of identity discourses which undermines quantication efforts lies in the signicance of shifting out-grouping strategies which fundamentally affect the nature of the in-group (Galasinski and Meinhof 2002). Asking people questions of who they are or who they are not will thus only tap into peoples consciously held abstract attitudes or even more unreliably their self-projection towards the interviewer or questionnaire. Our highly indirect method of interviewing avoided this most of the time and gave us access to more subtle and complex identity constructions. Framing the geopolitical spaces and the lifetimes of our informants by photographic triggers (Meinhof and Galasinski 2000; Meinhof et al. 2002: 711), we elicited 60- to 80-minute conversations with our informants largely self-selected narratives with the interviewers role kept low-key which we subsequently analysed in detail with discourse analytical methods. This approach allowed nely tuned interpretations of the ways in which people emphasise and shift in their identication of self and others, in-groups and out-groups. However, as will be shown below, our approach also produced signicant insights because of the lack of response to certain photographic triggers. In such cases we used a more direct questioning technique.

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In this article we want to explore whether and how the processes of European integration and EU enlargement and their ideologies are translated into local peoples everyday language and narrative self-understanding. But rstly, we will trace some of the meanings of Europe and the EU as understood in a wider international sphere since 1945. Then we will consider the emergence of the terms Europe and EU in the interview data, the connotations of these terms for our informants, and their resonance within identity narratives.

Denitions of Europe and the EU

Europe is a notoriously difcult concept to pin down. Modern geographers even dispute its physical status as a continent (Davies 1996: 47). The generally accepted notions of where Europes East becomes Asias West have shifted through time, resulting in the idea of a tidal Europe. These notions are in ux again after the collapse of the Soviet system and the enlargement processes of primarily Western European organisations to include the states of Central and Eastern Europe. The unresolved question of where the boundaries of Europe actually lie is of course not simply geographical or political. It is revealed in the dilemmas surrounding Europeanness, often particularly apparent in countries at Europes periphery, such as Russia, Turkey, and to some extent even Britain. Being European in these societies is about belonging and not belonging and often seems incompatible with a national identity. In other ways, Europe has come to acquire the status of a vague political and moral ideal. This has been used for political motives throughout history, emerging gradually out of the concept of Christendom. Related to this are underlying and largely uncontested notions of what underpins a modern Europe: these suggest a political structure based on the rule of law which upholds universal human rights; democracy by representation; a mitigated rather than a free-for-all form of capitalism and the existence of a social welfare system. The ideological weight of these legacies and concepts can be seen in the current debates about Turkeys status vis-a-vis the European Union on the basis of its ` Muslim heritage as well as its human rights record. Relatedly, such established ideas about common European values often serve to exclude non-Europeans and those Europeans who have an ethnic minority background from citizenship rights in Europe. It remains to be seen whether the visions of Europe as put forward by the institutions such as the EU will be able truly to incorporate the multicultural composition of most European societies (see also Lutz 1997; Martiniello 2001). During the last century the European ideal was appealed to to heal the wounds after two World Wars (Davies 1996: 10), for example in the creation of the League of Nations. In the second half of the century, Western European states used it as a legitimation for processes of greater co-operation and integration with a gradual and continuous expansion from the initial six founding members of the EEC in 1958 to the 15 states of the EU today, following the accession of Austria, Sweden and Finland in 1995.1 West European integration was supported by the United States and rmly embedded in American-led nance and trade structures (Waever 1993: 162). Hence the institutionalisation of the concept of Europe through the European Union is complemented by a further dimension which partly overlaps and partly dissects other transnational structures through organisations such as NATO.

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The concept of Europe in the Eastern countries was largely repressed after 1945, making way for separate political and ideological structures of eastern cohesion under the leadership of the Soviet Union and Soviet Communism. The Cold War and Superpower politics reinforced the EastWest bifurcation, and only with the end of the Cold War could a redenition of the European project, including East and West, begin. For most of its progression the EC/EU integration project was based on economic cooperation and integration, which should provide prosperity, peace and eventually a form of political union. It was not necessarily based on grand ideologies about Europeanness or common cultural and historical values (Waever 1993: 174). With the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the increasing resolve to create a strong supranational European Union and a movement of return to Europe by eastern European states, new arguments and questions about the concept of Europe and European identity have emerged in the 1980s and 1990s (Waever 1993: 204). This continues into the present and has also taken place against the background of increasing heterogeneity and pluralism of European societies, formed through the upsurge of regional ethnicities within nation states and various (im-)migration movements to and across the continent. The rise of identity politics reects the dynamics of this situation: across the European space, people seem concerned with the formation of insiders and outsiders, and with struggles over political and cultural boundaries. In this context, the question as to whether Europeanness can be dened on the basis of distinctive values and experiences gains its own political force. Many of these debates take place at the elite level of political, social and economic theory and high institutional practices at national and EU level. But how much of this enters peoples everyday life experiences? What does Europe or being European mean for its diverse people? In the next section we will shed some light on the standpoints from which ordinary people judge the meanings of Europe.

Saliency of Europe as a category of identity

One of the most striking and remarkable consistencies in the data collected right across our communities is the lack of resonance which Europe has for the people we interviewed (see also Meinhof and Galasinski 2002a). We have already pointed out that our interviews were triggered by highly-charged photographic images of the local area in different time-spans within the lifetimes of the oldest generation of interviewees. This use of photographs as narrative triggers was very effective in producing narratives as free as possible from interviewer bias.2 However, some of the images we used specically foregrounded Europe and the EU, such as buildings festooned with the EU ag and stars, or plaques acknowledging funding from the European Union. These images turned out to be the least successful in triggering narratives from our interviewees. Furthermore, Europeanness was rarely a spontaneous, self-chosen category of identication on either side of the current EU border. These minimal or non-existent reactions to the European triggers are signicant precisely because they contrast with the general success of the method in eliciting narratives of great thematic variation. Visual images of Europe and the EU were not picked up as narrative cues, sometimes even to the point of complete departure from the subject in sight. Generally and for most of our interviewees we have to conclude that Europe was an abstract

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category, conceptually vague and experientially intangible. Quite a number of interviewees declared there and then not to know anything about the subject or not to be interested, and the topic was not expanded any further. Others pondered on the subject for a while, usually after being asked a direct question by the interviewer, a technique we used only towards the end of the interview after the more indirect method of photographic triggers and indirect questions had been exploited to the full. At this stage, interviewers asked, for instance, whether people identied themselves as Europeans, what their associations with Europe and the EU were, and what they felt about EU enlargement. Thus, being more or less members of the dening communities themselves, interviewers clearly co-produced the Europe narratives. Only a few, exceptional identications with Europeanness were not elicited by images and questions. As a result of this (lack of) response by almost the entire informant sample, this article is largely concerned with discussing those narratives which our conversation partners produced when directly asked about Europe and EU enlargement. Inevitably, this direct question presented interviewees with a whole range of discursive meanings. It hinged, for instance, on the idea of Europe as a bounded entity, the idea of a common supranational institutional structure, on the idea of political and economic power (e.g. to dene state borders as categories of inclusion/exclusion), on the conceptualisations of East and West, and on ideas about cross-border movement and migration. Consequently this question triggered responses about self-understandings and self-positionings within these discursive elds. Being confronted with the idea of changing and redening larger political and economic boundaries, people engaged in an activity of dening and constituting boundaries themselves, often in a wider symbolic context. The Europe which emerged from our interview data was seen primarily through the prism of enlargement, and more narrowly through the imminent prospect of their own or their neighbouring countrys membership of the EU. This is an important qualication: unlike the internationalism stressed in elite discourses, these Europe narratives were decidedly local, often only weighing ones own gain or prot against that of ones immediate neighbour. What they clearly show is that the standpoints of our informants are modelled by local experience and historical context.

Narrative content
A comparative view of our data shows some differences of attitude towards Europe that represent the old political split between East and West. We have therefore chosen to approach our comparative outlook by clustering and comparing Western and Eastern communities. This approach highlights the lasting signicance of East/West identities and their role in negotiating the meanings of the new Europe. As we will show, ethno-nationhood, class and political subjecthood/citizenship were prevalent categories of identity in our European narratives. These categorisations gave shape to a range of constitutive others most often conceptualised as threats but which did not remain stable across the narratives of our informants. In other words, the nature of the insider and outsider group often shifted not only from one informant to another but also within the narrative of the same informant. The imminent reconstitution of EU boundaries and redenition of Europe often mobilised peoples reections on the socio-

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economic conditions they experienced in past and present and which they envisioned to experience in the future (such as access to economic and educational resources, healthcare, housing, employment, political rights etc). These were often couched in a language of anxiety and scepticism, but also of hope and optimistic expectation. In particular, discourses about the potentially even greater facility of cross-border mobility and movement after enlargement gave rise to highly ambivalent discourses for people on either side of the borderline. In general peoples narratives about Europe were often family discourses. Unlike the key narratives explored in Meinhof (2002), which were often generationally specic, narrative tropes on Europe were often shared among family members. Inevitably we can identify differences between those informants who locate themselves within a member-state and those who are non-members but belong to the ascendant nations poised to join the EU in the near future. Many of our interviewees on the Western side drew on a conceptual link between Europe and the EU, often by agreeing or not agreeing with this overlap. A positive attitude to Europe often meant being in favour of the EU as a political/economic institution or in some cases specically favouring the transnational new space which would unite the territory on either side of the border after accession (see for example the informant in Meinhof and Galasinski 2002a: 76). In this sense one might say that a certain discursive power about Europe has become prevalent (also Goddard et al. 1994: 26). For our interviewees on the eastern side of the border, however, the synonymy Europe EU was clearly problematic. On the one hand, as in the western data, Europe was often used as shorthand for the EU, to which they do not yet belong (Europe doesnt want us, Were not ready for Europe). On the other hand, an insistence that they lie within central Europe (as opposed to Eastern Europe) is, for example, a strong element in the rationale for joining the EU in the rst place. This ambivalence leads to several contradictions in interviewees usage of the term, as we will soon see. However, on both sides we nd vague and ambiguous notions of what Europe and the EU stood and stands for. Equally, on both sides the question of EU enlargement generated reections about the future. The vista of the future, common to both sides, was a language of prospects, expectations, opportunities, hopes and fears. This proved to be the main language through which people on both sides reected on Europe and the EU. People expressed their expectations and fears both in terms of personal as well as collective life and experience. Thus on the one hand, we found many similar concerns on either side of the border. However, despite such sharedness of concerns there was a difference in how these were articulated and narrativised through distinctly local experiences and historical contexts. In order to explore these differences and their implied issues of East and West, we will present both sides separately. Based on an overall assessment of all our data which dwell on the question of Europe we suggest the following generalisation: Westerners view Europe and the EU either through the prism of their nation or their region, sometimes through both. Seen through the prism of the region alone, Europe is often understood as a critical reection of the dominance of state nationalism (this was particularly evident in some of the data from Eastern Germany and Italy). In contrast, the prism of the nation foregrounds issues of superiority and their own nations positionality within differently ranked EU states. Easterners reect Europe predominantly through the

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prism of nation, and not through the region: here, however, this reection dwells on notions of inequality and dependency.

Narrativisation
Current members Our western interviewees belong to the current EU member-states of Germany, Italy and Austria. Whereas West Germany and Italy were among the founding members of the EEC in 1958, the people of East Germany joined the EC with unication in 1990 and Austria became a member only in 1995. In the extracts below, peoples sense of their experience of Europe is strongly related to their sense of being German, Italian or Austrian nationals and to the perceived relationship of their nation with other nation-states or intra-national regions. In all cases this entails perceptions and evaluations of political and economic power. Extract 1: Martin Weiss (20) and Martina Schwarz (20), former GermanGerman border, Bavarian side (ex-FRG)
MW: Well Fischer said he was deliberately not talking as foreign secretary and so on but as a private person and he means that that you have to create a core Europe out of the economically strong countries and then others that you have a certain quality level in the European Union and I think that is very good because one cant force equality because its obvious that Germany is erm from the economic point of view differently positioned than Poland and that is not going to change just like that and that one has a few states too which are a bit above the others exactly like in the United Nations the Security Council and the other members that is a good concept. MS: Because if you want to get everyone on the same level you cant get the others up so quickly that means you have to SCALE DOWN on something and that is against progress. Because other countries like the USA or Japan or someone else they dont care what we if we stagnate they dont care they are happy about it.

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Both speakers identify with Germany as an economically and politically strong state and position the country in relation to poorer Poland and the more powerful USA or Japan. Unequal economic strength and capitalist competitiveness are portrayed as an acceptable status quo (one cant force equality; and that is not going to change just like that), which provides the only sensible model for the distribution of political power in the EU. The justication for such constitutional inequality more votes for the rich is gained by adopting a narrative trope of progress and decline, according to which the poor stand in the way of economic progress and can therefore not be treated as equals. Extract 2: Gregor, Barenstein, German side of GermanCzech Border (ex-GDR)
I: Europe? G: Mh. ONE thing about it makes sense perhaps. But the EURO is complete shit if you dont mind me saying so. you have to be frank, I would have liked to keep the mark (grins) and: whether it will be good for our region when well when THOSE come here who offer cheap labour, its already quite bad here. For young people especially there is absolutely no future. Its going to be a how shall I put it? an old peoples home here. Young people leave. Apprenticeships and so on and so forth and once they nd something they stay there. Many go to the old lander. I have two daughters myself. Firstly its such a struggle here to get an apprenticeship anyway. Normally you dont get anything here anyway. Well yes and then: well I can see it in our neighbourhood and also among our friends, young people stay away if they can get a job somewhere, here they dont get anything. And then: if that gets better in a united

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Europe? The Czechs will come over here too. Especially then they will come. I dont know. well and the Euro: if you look at it it doesnt look good. well and thats why I would have liked to keep the hard mark (smiles).

Gregor too adopts a narrative trope of decline when asked about Europe and, like the narrators above, sees the topic through an economic prism. In contrast to the Bavarian narrators however, but comparable to many other East Germans, he refers to his own, his towns and his regions socio-economic grievances and their experience with economic decline and out-migration to the old Bundeslan der. In relation to this state of affairs united Europe does not offer hope but rather the prospect of further insecurity and loss, aggravated by the imminent immigration of the neighbouring much poorer Czechs.3 Extract 3: Irka Kalzmann, middle generation, Eisenkappel, Austria
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An interesting topic al:/alto/altogether. here we had the I mean the: referendum where you were asked about joining the EU yes or no. and after that also about the members of the EU parliament you were asked WHO HOW. on the rst as well as on the second occasion I voted against it. I am against the EU. And the second time I have: I didnt even go to vote even though I was a supervisor at the polling station. I didnt even vote because I said I was: against the EU b/bef/before. And now I am not interested either about who: goes there because its such a topic:/I dont like the EU. Even though on the other hand/I say to myself/its not bad: if I can use: well a common currency. I mean: it saves you money and makes things easier. Of course if you dont have to wait at border crossing points or wait in queues and so on. Erm: I have to wait or I have to declare goods well: and: MANY other things as well. Common sense tells me that. But on the other hand I have to say that because of these: border openings and especially with these: southern states criminality is very high. And no one can deny that and I always say this if something like this gets discussed. Once you open the newspaper or you turn on the TV. Its only foreigners. And only foreigners mainly well I believe you can see that 90% are Yugoslavs, Kosovo Albanians Rumanians less of those because they dont come up here so much. Well they are no matter whether you look at Austria or if you look at the criminality in Germany or Switzerland or well: in: other European states wherever they reach. Well this: th/this is really terrible.

Irka Kalzmanns narrative reects the fairly recent accession of Austria to the EU and shows its contested nature. As many interviews with our Austrian informants (on the Slovene as well as Hungarian border) show, the sanctions imposed by the EU because of the rightwing election success in 1999 revived anew the membership question. She voices strong oppostion to EU membership, juxtaposing it however with some advantages. Unlike the previous narrators, her knowledge is not explained as experiential: while the reasons for her dislike of the EU rst remain unexplained, its advantages are based on common sense. The main argument, however, is made with regard to border-openings in general, whose threatening nature is explained by a racist discourse about migrating criminals from southern states. This assertion is authorised by the reference to media reports about the criminal nature of foreigners. Extract 4: Gialli (17), Gorizia, Italy
G: Well, what can I say? I hope that there will be an overcoming of the national dimension, with the EU, and I hope that in 15 years we will be able to create a strong cohesion, to be European citizens, and not only Italian citizens, to go around, to live, to work, to look after our health, freely, in the EU, I hope this will be real, and I hope we will overcome the local dimensions, in which each nation wants to gain more and more money; now they dont want to collaborate, but I trust in the EU and I trust in its growth, Im not afraid of the opening to the East, at least for the nearer nations of the East.

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I: Do you feel integrated or feel that you are accepted from a professional point of view in a national context, international context or more? G: I hope in a European sense rather than in a national one. I: And now do you feel more Friulian, more Italian, or more European? G: No, I dont feel Italian, I feel Friulian and European. I: Why not Italian? G: Well, I know the present situation, I already think about Europe, and I think about a Europe in which it will not matter whether you are Italian, but the regional characteristics will be crucially important, and then the belonging to the United States of Europe.

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This narrative recorded in Gorizia on the ItalianSlovene border represents a positive, if not utopian outlook. Italian nationhood (and nationalism) and Friulian regionalism are played off against each other, with the EU promising an emphasis on the latter and therefore bearing a liberating future for Friulians. Here the evolutionist trope is clearly one of progress, not on the basis of preserving a status quo but on the basis of overcoming it. Interestingly, such discourses also occurred several times in earlier interviews on the eastern German border with Poland, when informants in the town of Guben articulated a strong regional identity (the federal state of Brandenburg) and for the EU, or even the EU as the only identication, leaving Germany out of the equation.4 In striking contrast to the rst extract (from western Germany which has had EU membership for the same length of time as Italy), the EU is envisioned as an ideal human project that rises above economic concerns and leads to equality among members. These western extracts are not entirely representative, in the sense that they stand for everyones views in the individual narrators community. Our data also bears evidence for other, differently accentuated or more negative or positive personal opinions. However, if one looks at the terms of debate people draw on, or their narrative tropes and plots, many parallels emerge that make comparison within as well as across communities possible. As we have seen, all narrators tell a tale of development and change, either drawing on metaphors of progress or decline. Relatedly, all present themselves as movers or stayers of some sort, as people who undergo change themselves or who remain unchanged. What seems important with regard to understanding the link between personal experiences and larger, public or collective institutions like the EU, the state, or indeed the state border, is the sense of identication or disidentication with symbols of power that these narratives entail. In the rst extract, the narrators experience is rooted in the shared ethnicity with the majority members of their state. They come from Bavaria but above all identify themselves as Germans, which corresponds with a powerful and privileged form of nationhood. This emerges narratively in the assumption of a homogenous nation, the identication with the foreign secretarys statement and the assumption of a collective we, implying Germany and other powerful nations. There is a complete absence of any references to the region, the former border or to personal experience that might complicate the picture. Instead the plot is guided by a supposedly commonsense principle: economic power should equal political power. The second extract from the East German border is more complex. The narrator lives in a community that shares ethnicity with the majority members of their nation-state (if only newly gained), but is different and disadvantaged with regard to economic prosperity. In narrative, this materialises in the repre-

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sentation of a non-homogenous nation: he identies the region as opposed to the old states, represents local socio-economic grievances and refers to personal anxiety and struggle. Gregors plot is led by the enforced disappearance of the German mark (I would have liked to keep the mark) and the subsequent loss of economic security and of the communitys young people who are forced to move elsewhere for work. The third extract from the AustrianSlovene border is equally based on the experience of shared ethnicity with other Austrians and on the assumption of a homogenous nation, albeit in a relationship of tension with the EU. Here too the narrator feels part of a bounded national in-group, also by virtue of strongly identifying against the supranational EU. Her plot is guided by the motif of personal feelings and actions by which she asserts powerful public narratives and privileged subject positions: Austrian independence (vis-a-vis the EU), ` Austrian nationals who can enjoy easy border-crossing travel, and racist media reports about foreigners. The fourth extract is the only one that is not steeped in the experience of a shared dominant ethnicity here a regional Friulian minority status stands opposed to the Italian national centre. The narrator disidenties with Italy, but identies with a collective European we and a personal Friulian I. He envisions a harmonious relationship between Friaul and Europe which will generate a form of supranational citizenship. Again this plot is guided by a principle: that the overcoming of nationalism will ensure freedom and equality. This summary shows that the differences of these narratives are rooted in the locally specic experiences and concerns of our narrators. Contrary to what one might expect, the question of Europe did not raise many grand commitments to Europeanness and only very little imaginative activity as to what that might mean. Even the positive and idealistic Gorizian narrative is clearly set in a local experience. We can see, however, that for all of our western interviewees the question of Europe triggered reections about nationhood and self-positionings vis-a-vis ` ones own nation-state. Their dis/identications reected not only a sense of how much power they assigned to their nation, but also where they stood as individual citizens with regard to a powerful (however qualied) national centre. The West German and Austrian narrative established an uncomplicated relationship in this regard; the East German and Italian extract revealed a more complicated view. Interestingly, it is only these two extracts where the narrators imagine themselves as cross-border movers and as people who undergo change: East German movement into the more prosperous West and the Friulian movement into the de-nationalised European space. Whereas in the rst case this is presented as a curse, in the second it emerged as a promise. These reasonings on individual citizenship and nationhood (and the sense of security or insecurity this entailed) also related to outside threats. It was in this sense that the Europe question was turned into an out-grouping device: all narrators refer to the former communist East (Poland, Czech Republic, Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Albania, Romania) and even the idealistic Gorizian limits his vision of freely moving and exchanging Europeans to the nearer states of the East and makes a case for membership. In all cases these outsiders are imagined as predisposed cross-border movers who provide threats to ones sense of security and belonging.

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The data we draw on from the Eastern side of the current EU border were all collected in states which are in the so-called rst wave of applicants and will all provisionally join the EU during 2004. These states are Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia. At the time of the interviews, public debates around enlargement were largely focused on potential dates of accession and the fullment of the stringent criteria required of applicant states. Enlargement thus became a national issue, seen through the national media, often in terms of direct comparisons with the direct neighbour across the EU border. This comparison and the often painful experience of rapid socio-economic upheaval in the previous decade are the foils against which our interviewees attempt to understand what EU membership might mean to them. They express fears of exploitation and dominance, often tapping into discourses which are centuries old. But hopes of rapid economic improvement are also prevalent. In the extract below, a middle-aged inhabitant of the Polish town of Zgorzelec reects on the hurdles to EU membership from a position of marked inferiority: Extract 5: Kajetan Grom, middle generation, Zgorzelec, Poland
KG: I: KG: I: KG: I: KG: Eeh for this for what for Europe one needs to grow up. Really? Havent we grown up? I think not. We havent. We as Poles here I mean in this region. I see. No. Why is that? I was I saw myself how everything is organised. Over there somebody will say that this is for this and this is for that and it is like this. And in our (place) come on! I: I see. KG: No no this is because there is no discipline at all in our nation. I mean here. There isnt. Everyone does everyone thinks about themselves, is an egotist. Everyone is an egotist because they think about themselves only about their own business, but Europe?

In this extract Europe is used as an out-group, synonymous with the current Western European EU, and is a positively-loaded aspirational term used to contrast with the perception of the speakers own national in-group. The distinction is drawn in terms of maturity; Poland is a child which needs to grow up with no discipline at all and where everyone is an egotist. A uni-directional progression might be inferred from this analogy; children with time become adults. But its force clearly lies in the assertion of difference and the difculties involved in overcoming them, with some doubt as to whether this is even possible. Extract 6: Ana Strel, middle generation, Jezersko, Slovenia
Our political situation is just down to zero and if you follow the papers or the news programme the TV this is obvious there is no (sighs) we are not yet ripe for Europe. also Europe will not accept us: eh: as chaotic as we are. Certainly not. a PITy right because after all we are still in Europe although we are more on the BALkans than/more DOWN than up but whatever (reconstructed) right I think that we are/that we are REALLY the most developed republic of former Yugoslavia and eh: we are rather advanced in science as we have a lot of SCIENtists and also a LOt of CLEver people ONly the leadership is not the right one isnt it. And I think that many people would agree with me in that. I dont know what it will be like.

In the extract above, it is clear how ambivalent the term Europe is for this middle-aged woman from the Slovenian town of Jezersko. In her rst few

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phrases she uses the word Europe three times. The rst two instances refer only to the current EU, something which Slovenia aspires to become part of, but which remains elusive. This elusiveness is explained again in terms of maturity, order and superiority/inferiority. As in extract 5 above, the EU is seen as a benchmark of maturity and order with which to contrast ones own nation (we are not ripe for Europe, as chaotic as we are). The other obstacle is seen as the EUs rejection (they wont let us in). Immediately in the next line, Slovenias claim to Europeanness is then stressed in a more geographical sense (after all we are still in Europe) where the borders of Europe have clearly expanded. Their limits are, however, then exposed with the introduction of another Other: in this case the Balkans, and to some extent synonymously, the former Yugoslavia, both of which are used to exemplify a negatively-charged non-Europeanness. Ana establishes a continuum at whose ends are the mutually exclusive Europe and the Balkans and tries to negotiate Slovenias position on this continuum, at one point establishing its Balkan-ness (Although we are more on the Balkans) which again is negatively valued (more DOWN than up). She then tries to establish a superior position within this Balkanness: We are REALLY the most developed republic of former Yugoslavia. This state of advanced development is described in terms of having scientists and educated people. Implicitly, Slovenias claim to Europeanness is thus strengthened, a point mirrored in some interviews elsewhere along the border. For example, a German woman from Gorlitz referred to Polands universities as a reason why it should be admitted. But there is no clear sense of progression in time. In the end, Ana is unable to predict the future and identies another group who might be to blame for Slovenias lack of progress: their national political leaders. This again is typical for the Eastern side of the border: a lack of faith in the abilities of the national elite to protect the national interest, whether negatively-marked as corruption or more neutrally as inexperience. Extract 7: Lujza Seres, 77, Pinkamindszent, Hungary
Heaven [lit: the cuckoo] knows. Everything. You hope and are afraid too. No? [laughs] There will certainly be something which wont turn out as expected. But well, who knows? You can never know. Who knows, we might also be abandoned, or it [ EU] might also collapse, because it will collapse just like all the other rms, wont it? I think so. Well, who knows what will come of the world. Well stay in our place, whether it be good or bad.

Lujzas extract shows several features typical of many of our older-generation interviewees. Her extract is full of uncertainty (you can never know, who knows?) which is markedly fatalistic. This is a woman who has experienced so many radical changes in her lifetime that she doubts the permanence of any event. The EU and the process of Enlargement, which elsewhere seems irrevocable, uni-directional and permanent, is seen as transient and fragile (or it might also collapse). The EU is linked directly to the economic experience of the last decade and the consequences of the transformation to a market-based economy (just like all the other rms). The only permanence she holds on to is her rootedness to her life in the village, come what may. Enlargement is not something she expects to gain from, but something which will bring only more uncertain upheavals.

Imagining Europe Extract 8: Zdenek, young generation, Vejprty, Czech Republic

I: Z: I: Z: And what about the European Union, is there any help or not? It will help us I would say. Will it be better? I would say yes and I dont know if, according to me the Germans would be the loser that [laughs] in my opinion it will be such hrrr everyone will rush there and I dont know and the Germans what: everyone will want to go and work there I suppose and perhaps on the contrary that some companies will come here I dont know well I would want it and it will be interesting. I: Well and you will join the border police and the EU will come. Z: I dont know, I will be jobless [laughs].

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Zdeneks extract here is interesting as an example of a young-generation interviewee who sees several possibilities in the enlargement process, not all of which are negative. Again, uncertainty is emphasised, but not in quite the fatalistic, paralysing sense of Lujza above. Zdenek takes on some of the common fears of the Other, in this case his German neighbours across the border from his Czech village. The image of the invading mass crossing the border in search of work is raised, only to be undermined by the prospect of inward investment and more employment for his own area. This he values positively (well I would want it). The interviewer then highlights the paradox of his own position, wanting to join the border police which will soon no longer exist. Common to all the extracts above, and to most of the narratives collected on the eastern side of the border, is a sense of uncertainty, powerlessness and disenfranchisement. There are many examples where the interviewee responds positively to the idea of Europe in a vague, general sense, but this is followed up with professions of ignorance, uncertainty or lack of interest. In some cases this was clearly a distancing strategy, a signal that they do not wish to engage with the issue. In others the interviewee shows a willingness to follow the debate, mainly through the national media (see the start of extract 6), and a desire to form a conclusion about it but cannot decide between those on the one hand who say it will be good, and then the others who say it will be bad. Alibis are often used to excuse their lack of clarity: Even the cleverest dont know. In general, most Eastern interviewees were uncertain about their future in the new Europe, and all agreed it is something which will happen to them and not something which they will be active in shaping. Figures of power are referred to, often obliquely as an ill-dened they, or not at all. In some cases a national elite is mentioned, but it is often dismissed as corrupt or its power is seen as relative and ambivalent, especially vis-a-vis the European Union. `

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Conclusion
We have argued in our paper that as a lived concept of everyday experience Europe and the EU do not enter the narratives of people on the current EUs Eastern and South-Eastern border even when confronted with the visible signs of the EUs positive presence (support for regional or transregional developments). As an in-grouping device it remains curiously empty with the local and historical context overriding the larger transnational issues of transcending national structures. In all cases the European Union provided some prism for peoples identication, positive or negative, with a stronger implicit overlap between the EU and Europe on the western side and a more ambivalent and explicit double-vision on the eastern side. Underlying all these narratives about

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the future of the EU, especially for those who live on its current eastern margins, are threads of insecurity and fear mixed with some sense of promise of a better economic existence. Narratives were invariably complex, often ambivalent and by no means clearly divided according to positive or negative evaluations. They would certainly be difcult to capture by blunt instruments such as ticking a box about being either pro or contra the EU or Europe. Even though people often phrased their views in terms of pro or contra opinions, there was no clear-cut match between a pro-European stance and a liberal discourse, nor did a contra-European stance neatly match an anti-liberal discourse. While positive views of Europe could be couched in highly elitist, exclusivist discourses, negative views were sometimes articulated within visions of a free and borderless transnational society. People discursively construct implicit in-groups of us at those points when explicit out-grouping devices against them are most prevalent. Europeans east and west seem to feel a sense of belonging to some vague notion of Europe most actively when they draw a line against less privileged outsiders who have not quite earned the right of an entry ticket. Notes
Brief overview of EU history: 1949 Council of Europe (and NATO); 1958 EEC (France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, West Germany); 1967 EC; 1973 accession of UK, Ireland, Denmark; 1981 accession of Greece; 1986 accession of Spain and Portugal; 1990 accession of East Germany with German unication; 1992 EC becomes EU; 1995 accession of Austria, Sweden and Finland; May 2004 expected accession of inter alia Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia. 2 For more on the use of photographs in interviews see Meinhof and Galasinski (2000). 3 See also the articles by Wastl-Walter et al. and Holly et al. in this special issue. 4 The German/Polish border towns of Guben/Gubin and the Bavarian/Thuringian communities of Tiefengrun and Hirschberg were studied by Meinhof and Galasinski in 19992000 in a smaller ESRC-funded study preceding the EU Framework project (cf. Meinhof and Galasinski 2000, 2002a). 1

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Author details
Heidi Armbruster was a Research Fellow on the EU Border Identities Project and is currently Lecturer in German Social and Political Studies at the University of Southampton. She may be contacted at: School of Modern Languages University of Southampton Southampton SO17 1BJ UK E-mail: H.Armbruster@soton.ac.uk Craig Rollo was a Research Assistant on the EU Border Identities Project at the University of Southampton. E-mail: cr121@gmx.de Ulrike H. Meinhof is Professor and Chair of German and Cultural Studies at the University of Southampton, and Co-ordinator of the EU Border Identities Project. School of Modern Languages University of Southampton Southampton SO17 1BJ UK E-mail: U.H.Meinhof@soton.ac.uk

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