Local, Regional, National, and European Identities

Since the late 1980s, regions and regionality in particular have received a lot of attention in political and academic discussions (Paasi 2009, 464). In these discussions, locality, regionality, and Europeanness form an interrelated and inter-determined sphere of meanings: European cities and regions are often discursively formed and determined in relation to Europe, and similarly, Europe is being discursively constructed through regions and localities. Several studies have referred to this process as the ‘localization of Europe’ or the

‘Europeanization of the local’. Scholars have also used the concept of ‘the Europe of regions’ to describe the phenomena where “the ‘European’ is becoming increasingly ‘localized’, and simultaneously, the ‘local’ is clearly being

‘Europeanized’” (Johler 2002, 9). In this process, nations and nationalities are considered to be losing their previous position while regions are gaining new importance. The EU-based funding for cities and regions (such as the ECOC designation) has created new possibilities for local and regional agents. The EU policy has established a situation in which regions and cities have to compare themselves not only with other national areas and cities, but also with other regions in other nation-states (Hansen 2002). The EU-level projects in the cities and regions have opened up new possibilities to elaborate them in cultural terms and to rethink their cultural identities. The local level projects and practices and the EU governance are intertwined in manifold ways. Reinhard Johler (2005, 35) has described the specific character of the relation between the local level and the EU with the concept of ‘eu-local’.

According to Anssi Paasi (2009, 478), the phrase ‘Europe of regions’ has been more of a tool of governance ‘from above’ than a tool of regionalism ‘from below’, although it is often used to describe the idea (and ideal) of fostering the regionality and strengthening the importance of regions in Europe. In fact, some scholars have suggested that since the current EU is a multilevel system of governance, it is actually incorrect to speak of a Europe of regions and how it would perhaps be more correct to speak of a Europe with regions (Paasi 2009, 477; Vos et al. 2002).

The increased emphasis on regions and regional identities has also been explained in relation to global economy. Scholars have recently emphasized how the international markets and regional political responses to global capitalism generate regionalism and accentuate the significance of regions.

Regionalism is in this context a reflection of globalization. (Paasi 2009, 466–467.) In addition, the emphasis on regions in the EU has been related to competition and neoliberalism as fundamental principles in the EU governance (Paasi 2009, 467; Rumford 2000).

37 At the end of the last century, several sociologists, such as Bauman (1990) and Maffesoli (1996), predicted that nation-states would lose their previous position as producers and maintainers of identities, while nationality would increase its meaning as a private identity project among other such projects. At the same time cultural ties above and beneath the nation-state level, such as religious and ethnic identities, regional strivings, and global and supranational projects, were predicted to strengthen. In addition, the increasing cultural diversity and internal pluralism in the nation-states in the Western world has been interpreted to influence the identity production at national and regional levels. On one hand, scholars have pointed out how supranational structures, transnational interaction, globalization, and the increased ‘creolization’

(Hannerz 1992; Hall 1995) of culture have caused a backlash of national and ethnic sentiments and of territorial attachments below the supranational level (Shore 1997; Castells 1997; Özkirimli 2005; Banks & Gingrich 2006; Delanty 2008). These global societal and cultural changes have been considered to increase regionalist and nationalist movements and activate interest in fostering and searching for regional and national cultural roots and traditions (Hall 1995;

Bonet & Négrier 2011).

On the other hand, non-state-based forms of identification and especially constitutional patriotism have been considered increasingly to replace state-based nationalism (Habermas 2001). According to J. McCormic (2010), identification with Europe has increased along with nations, and an interest in cosmopolitan ideas and global phenomena may, in fact, strengthen the role of Europe as a unifier of Europeans and as a framework for a feeling of belonging.

As a consequence of these diverse trajectories, the polarization of area-based identities is increasing: the regional, national, and European identities are getting more pronounced expressions and manifestations.

The idea and contents of the concept of national identity vary in different countries due to their historical and political realities and differences in internal homogeneity or heterogeneity, mono- or multi-linguistic character, religious unity or plurality, or the ethnic composition of the population, etc. In addition, a national identity can be approached by emphasizing the ethnic belonging and togetherness e.g., based on language, common origins or traditions, or by bringing to the fore the membership of a civil society and the participation in it (Smith 1991, 15; Meeseus et al. 2010; Mähönen & Jasinskaja-Lahti 2013, 256). In the latter case, the idea of a national identity is much looser and more easily gained (Meeseus et al. 2010). As cultural identities national identities are transformable, negotiable, and in a constant state of being produced in cultural interaction. Thus the notions on national identity and culture differ among people, groups of people within a country, and between countries. The same applies to all area-based identities. However, the ways of talking and representing a national identity and culture can in the course of time become

38

discursive traditions, which influence or even determine the idea of a national identity in a country (Saukkonen 1999, 287).

The concepts of European identity and Europeanness have recently been broadly discussed in the academia. As the discussions indicate, the idea of European identity is profoundly complex and contradictory and includes meanings which vary depending on the discursive situations in which the idea is produced, defined, and used. In addition, the idea of a European identity embodies political dimensions due to which the discussions about it have often been included in political agendas both at the national and European levels. As all area-based cultural identities, the idea of Europeanness embodies both distinguishable but in several ways overlapping dimensions of the collective and the individual. Agents shaping the collective discourse considering a European identity take a very prominent position on the crystallization of identity at the individual level (Bee 2008). The EU itself has actively participated in the construction of European identity during the different stages of its history.

Several civil and cultural initiatives of the EU, such as the ECOC, have aimed at providing meanings of Europe and the EU for the citizens (e.g., Sassatelli 2002;

Bruter 2003; van Bruggen 2006). In addition, local, regional, and national agents participate (or are expected to participate due to the EU’s governmental principles in its civic and cultural initiatives) in the meaning-making of Europe, the EU, and a European identity.

In general, several scholars have emphasized the varied views on the conception of European identity: a European identity is often approached in the literature either as a civic (political) or cultural identity emphasizing either the legal status and citizenship, or shared culture, history, heritage, and values as the common base for the creation of identity (Bruter 2003; 2004; Antonsich 2008).

Some other scholars have analyzed the dimensions of a European identity with a more detailed categorization. For example, Franz Mayer and Jan Palmowski (2004) recognize five different types of European identities – historical, cultural, constitutional, legal, and institutional – which have been affected by the process of European integration. According to Delanty (2005), ideas about European identity can be perceived as encapsulating cultural, political, moral, pragmatic, and cosmopolitan meanings. The cultural emphasis in the conception of European identity has often been interpreted as a ‘thick’ version of a European identity, while the ‘thin’ version of European identity have been perceived to refer e.g., to the ideas of constitutional patriotism and a cosmopolitan notion of European identity (Beck & Grande 2007; Pichler 2008; 2009).

Understanding Europeanness as a thick identity based on a common culture, heritage, and history faces diverse challenges in Europe due to the complex relations of the national interpretations of the past. Topics and histories which some Europeans might consider common for the continent may be dissonant in one way or another for some other Europeans (Ashworth & Graham 1997, 384).

The different nationalities may interpret ‘Europeanness’ or ‘European’ quite

39 differently (Risse 2003, 77; Jones & Subotic 2011, 254). For some nationalities a European identity is based more on civic or political understanding, while some others emphasize its cultural notion (Bruter 2005).

Identities are often produced and manifested in order to distinguish oneself from the ‘others’ and to indicate both similarity and the belonging to a particular community. In this sense, the relation to the conception of national culture or national identity is crucial to the production of Europeanness. The transforming and fluid relations of national and European identification have been much discussed in the academia (e.g., Herrmann & Brewer 2004; Risse 2010). On one hand, a European identity can be perceived as being produced as a negation or reaction to ‘national’ or ‘non-European’. On the other hand, a European identity is perceived as complementary to the national, regional, and local identities of people living in Europe (Breakwell 2004; Risse 2006).

Several scholars have criticized the concept of European identity as too abstract, lofty, and intellectual. These critiques are, however, a consequence of using the national template as a normative model, as Monica Sassatelli (2009, 74) notes. According to her, there is a need for a new way of imagining the relationship between culture, identity, and governance in the investigations of Europeanness. In this study a special focus on the meaning-making and conceptualization of Europeanness is taken in section 3.2, which summarizes the results of the questionnaire study on the notions of area-based identity concepts in the three case cities.