Reciprocal Reinforcement of Entangled Narrations on Outer and Inner European Borders. Romani People, Nation States and Europe

Narrations about "Europe" always contain assumptions about the cultural and social homogeneity and heterogeneity of the groups that are supposed to be included in or excluded from the imaginary European community. Contemporary literary texts have developed narrative strategies that can negotiate criteria and procedures establishing the outer and inner borders of communities. They also construct sometimes critical, sometimes affirmative correlations between Europe's outer border and imaginary thresholds and depict certain groups, such as the Roma, as 'non-European'. Some of these literary and journalistic narrations construct an alleged correspondence between the (imagined) characteristics of Roma people and 'non-Europeans', thereby reinforcing both the coherence of European outer borders and the cohesion of the internal homogeneity of 'Europeans', who are defined as non-Romani. These narrations obviously have a real impact on practices of inclusion/exclusion of people, as this article seeks to show. Exploring the possibilities of literary texts to create second-order-observing positions and to generate heteronomy and counter narratives, this study focusses on the works of Herta Mller and especially her story 'The Big Black Axis' and asks whether they succeed in developing counter-narratives. It also discusses the potential of these texts to change patterns of inclusion/exclusion and considers issues of self-representation and politics of recognition

Internationalization · Linguistics · Media studies · Originality · Political science · Public relations · Publishing · Qualitative research · Reciprocal · Social science · Sociology · Law · Romani and Gypsy Studies

• Critical Introduction

  Open Access•Richard A Posner•Law and Literature•2009

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• Asylums

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