The Boundaries of Europe

Deconstructing Three Regional Narratives

Bibliographic Data

ID7802191
AuthorsLila Leontidou, Λιλα Λεοντιδου (0000-0002-9890-9022, Hellenic Open University, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume11
Issue4
Pages593-617
Publication date2004-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIdentities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1070-289X • E-ISSN: 1547-3384
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10702890490883876
OpenAlexW2083337514
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited26

The shifting boundaries of Europe as lines of enclosure and mobility restriction in the ‘longue duree’are analysed here at the European/supranational level through the deconstruction of three regional narratives on “Europe” and its reborderings in different millennia. These narratives have had a lasting significance in identity construction and spatialities around the Mediterranean and are evidence of the historically specific and constructed nature of the boundaries of Europe, as well as the power relations involved in changing spatialities. Europe is a cultural construct that emerged around the Mediterranean in a captivating Greek myth, much earlier than the period of written history. The notion of Europe then ‘shifted’ to the northwest as a colonial cultural–religious construct of ‘Christendom’ during the Middle Ages, before nation-states emerged. Much later, European integration—in the context of globalization after the end of bipolarity—not only did not melt borders, but in fact created some new and often bizarre hierarchies supported by a bureaucratic narrative and an institutional discourse for unification after two devastating world wars. Unpacking these narratives is important in understanding sociopolitical constructions of ‘Europe’ and its boundaries, their hardening or relaxation, and criticizing essentialism, as well as commenting upon the ambivalent placing in the European Union of certain candidate and neighboring nations

Construct (python library · Context (archaeology · Essentialism · European union · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Sociology · Cross-Border Cooperation and Integration · Gender Studies · History · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Religious Tourism and Spaces

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