A chair on the Europe of Europeans

On 15 February, the Anthropology of Contemporary Europe Chair⁽¹⁾ organised its first thematic day, focusing on the Danube. The new chair, launched in September at UCL, aims to build a network of researchers interested in the experience and representations of Europeans in all their diversity. 

How do Europeans live Europe from day to day? How do they represent their European identity? What values and representations do they share and which ones distinguish them? These questions are at the heart of the Pascal Lamy Anthropology of Contemporary Europe Chair. 

A necessary theme in the current context

‘Research on Europe is generally focused on the institutional and economic level, but it is sorely lacking in considering what constitutes it culturally and anthropologically, on Europeans!’ explains Prof. Marc Abélès, the anthropologist who holds the chair. ‘These are issues that have interested me, as well as Pascal Lamy, for a long time, and that finally were addressed two years ago with this UCL chair. Today, given the mistrust of institutions, this question of a European people is more than ever at the heart of the debate. A gap has widened between the technocrats who govern the EU and the people who live in it. The latter see it as an abstract, restrictive framework, and no longer as a project that unites and protects. At the same time, they feel the need for a strong collective presence in the face of threats from economic globalisation and other world powers. It is therefore essential to rethink the structure of a Europe based on the anthropo-cultural realities of its citizens”. “The value of our approach is focusing on research that begins at the sub-political level, that is, the daily lives of Europeans” completes Séverine Lagneaux, co-creator and coordinator of the Chair. 

Implementing a network of researchers

In concrete terms, the chair has set itself the goal of identifying as many researchers as possible who work on these issues, contacting them and gradually creating a network. ‘A whole new generation of researchers is studying these issues in European countries but they are not very well known and they are very scattered’, Prof. Abélès explains. ‘Unless you have a very thorough bibliography, it is difficult to find out what has already been done on the subject. Which is not normal.’ Dr Séverine Lagneaux adds, ‘The difficulty is that they are not necessarily associated with departments of anthropology. They can be political scientists, geographers or sociologists. All the researchers we assemble have the characteristic of taking an empirical approach to the everyday lives of Europeans. They use an anthropological method called “Participant observation”. Their reflections are rooted in the field. There are no pre-established questionnaires. It’s inductive work: to make the questions arise from the daily activity of people. It’s work that’s done over the long term: it’s necessary to be able to create an affinity and to exchange in-depth to better understand their lived experience, all the depth of their conceptions, representations and practices.’

Research areas

In their first surveys of the research in progress on these issues, Prof. Abélès and Dr Lagneaux identified four major themes of concern, which they have taken up as the chair’s main work areas: 

• Diversity operators: values, languages, traditions, religions, cultures, modes of consumption…everything that brings together and separates Europeans. 
• European citizenship: how inhabitants represent and live it, their different feelings of belonging.
• Migrations: how do people experience these contacts with these populations, how do they integrate into societies, what are the cultural impacts.
• Europe seen from elsewhere: other continents often perceive Europe as more homogeneous than it really is. It’s therefore an interesting perspective for thinking about European cultural identity. 

‘In the research,’ Prof. Abélès says, ‘we also see a whole series of cross-cutting themes, such as the environment, through which people feel European because they face the same challenges.’ 

Thematic days: a European laboratory

To make this network a reality, the chair has planned to organise four thematic days a year. ‘The interest of these days is to gather researchers whose research fields are located throughout Europe around a theme and really take the time to discuss together, unlike a two-hour conference where we just listen to speakers. The idea is to make it a real laboratory of European experience!’ Prof. Abélès says. ‘How people from different countries will talk to each other and think together...collaborations can come from that. We also plan to publish on our site all our speakers’ research references and “working papers”, for those who accept it. At the university, publication deadlines are very far off and it’s valuable for researchers to collaborate upstream. The idea is to centralise on our site all the studies and events in the field. But in the long term, we would also like these exchanges to stimulate the creation of similar chairs at other universities, to form a real European chair! Finally, the objective is also for this research to echo within the institutions and raise the awareness of political decision-makers so that the European structure evolves.’ 

A first day dedicated to the Danube

The chair’s first thematic day took place on 15 February in Louvain-La-Neuve and focused on the theme ‘Danube : l’Europe à l’épreuve d’un fleuve’ (‘Danube: Europe challenged by a river’). ‘This river,’ Dr Lagneaux explains, ‘which crosses ten countries, symbolises the European kaleidoscope. It’s interesting to analyse the experiences of local residents, with very different cultures and realities, but who are at the same time bound by this blue thread and common issues such as the environmental management of the river.’ On this occasion, the chair invited eight researchers working in the field along the river to present their work. ‘In the panel’s composition, we made sure to choose speakers from different institutions, to represent the diversity of opinions and ways of conceiving Europe, and who provided complementary analyses around the theme’, Dr Lagneaux says. After each contribution, two UCL commentators, an anthropologist and a political scientist or historian, questioned the speakers and moderated a debate with the audience. ‘Every member of the audience was considered a real actor, which enriched the discussion. Participation was open to everyone, whether or not they were academics. Based on the same concept, the next day will be held on 3 May on the theme ‘In / Out : vivre quotidiennement les frontières intra, extra européennes, visibles et invisibles’ (‘In/Out: the everyday experience of visible and invisible intra- and extra-European borders’).

Barbara Delbrouck

Do you work on issues related to the chair? Don’t hesitate to contact Séverine Lagneaux to join the network: severine.lagneaux@uclouvain.be - +32 (0)10/47.83.10

(1) The chair is currently funded by the Fondation Baillet Latour and the Fondation Notre Europe in Paris. It is seeking additional funding to develop the project. 

 

A glance at Marc Abélès' bio

An anthropologist, Marc Abélès is a professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) (Paris), a CNRS Research Director and holds the UCL Pascal Lamy

He is the author of numerous publications including:

A glance at Séverine Lagneaux's bio

2016-17: Research Scholarship, Fondation Fyssen, LESC, Université Paris Nanterre 
2013-16: RNRS Postdoctoral Researcher, LAAP – UCL / LAS – Collège de France 
2012-13: Postdoctoral Researcher, FSR, Laboratoire d’Anthropologie sociale (LAS), Collège de France with N. Vialles
2010: PhD, Social Sciences, Anthropology Concentration, UCL