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This paper is concerned with re-imaginings of 'Europe' following the accession to the European Union (EU) of former 'Eastern European' countries. In particular it explores media representations of post-EU accession migration from Romania to the United Kingdom in the UK and Romanian newspaper press. Todorova's (1997) notion of Balkanism is deployed as a theoretical construct to facilitate the analysis of these representations as first, the continuation of long-standing and deeply embedded imaginings of the 'East' of Europe and, second, as a means of contesting these discourses. The paper explores the way in which the UK press construct Balkanist discourses about Romania and Romanian migrants, and then analyses how the Romanian press has contested such discourses. The paper argues that the idea of the 'East' remains important in constructing notions of 'Europe' within popular media geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban square has been a distinguishing characteristic of European cities for millennia. However, in the context of small towns, where the square is often the sole identifier of their physical urbanity, its role differs from that of large towns. This fact is substantial within national administrative systems that endorse desirable urban status to rural settlements endowed with urban morphology. It is also important in times of extensive EU-subsidized actions aimed at improving the quality of public space in small underresourced towns. However, many projects fail to draw from and respond to the specifics of the local context, and, by focusing on the details and disregarding the basics, they may defeat their purpose. Departing from extensive field observations in Poland, this paper puts theoretical framework and current trends in urban design into relation to various elements of a square's spatial configuration in order to arrive at degrees of their urban significance. By interpreting the fundamental values embedded in the morphology of market squares, this paper attempts to isolate the cultural archetypes that shape our perception of such places as urban. The proposed analysis could be used to meet the main goal of market square revitalization, namely to visually articulate urbanity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A large literature in cultural geography, history, and sociology has discussed the different, constantly shifting, and mutually defining constructions of 'Europe,' 'Eastern Europe,' and more recently the 'New Europe,' focusing mostly on examples from the media, politics, and sometimes the arts. However, the literature has done little to analyze the construction of notions of Europe, and the role they play, in the realm of business. This paper begins to explore the connection between cultural understandings of Europe and investment decisions. Specifically, it follows a group of investors from Italy, showing the 'cultural clashes' they encountered in setting up business operations in Slovakia, Romania, and Ukraine. The paper is developed in three steps. First, the relevant cultural and economic geographical literatures are reviewed. Second, the historical progression of Italian investment since the 1990s is discussed in relation to broader economic changes in Italy and the New Europe. Third, investors' changing perceptions of the 'New Europe' are discussed in the framework of the consolidation of Italian investments in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Jennifer Cash on Europeanization, one by Duncan Light and Craig Young on the ways that Europe is portrayed in mass media and another on Europe by Virginie Madouh and Christian Sellar.

This paper analyses how cultural production and artistic activities can explain the social (de)construction of borders. The study looks at the soft, cultural aspects of bordering, encounters between the immigrants and their host societies, and the conscious and unintentional ways of altering their mental frames. The analysis focuses on the World Village Festival organised annually in Helsinki, and a young literary project titled “Sidelight – is this Finnish literature?” Based on these two case studies, associations between the concepts of bordering, liminality and translation are developed to enable a deeper understanding of the encounters between immigrant cultures and their host societies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2005, Moldova's Communist Party was re-elected to power on a platform that promised unification with the European Union, reversing the position officially held since 2001 which oriented the country toward Russia. The Party's new orientation also sparked widespread debate, especially within intellectual circles, as many individuals found themselves in the strange position of being ideologically anti-Communist and pro-European, at a moment when Communists themselves had become pro-European. This paper aims to capture the use of 'Europe' in the social and political negotiations of culture workers, whose professional identity includes a strong element of political opposition, and to explore how the increased proximity and power of the European Union to Moldova has caused the social and political geography of 'Europe' to shift within Moldova. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the tillage patterns of ridged and level fields, and suggests past incentives for their alternative selection within the agricultural history of northwestern Europe. Fieldwork in Ireland in 1994 and 1995 focused on traditional plow and spade competitions and systematic test plot experiments. Analyses compared the movements of body, tools, and soils in the field, the time absorbed, and the effects on field form, ecology, and yields. The motion studies revealed that the contrasting surfaces arise from alternative spatial patterns of cutting and turning soils in the field. Applying cultural adaptation theory, I ask why people would select one pattern over the other where both are available. Overall, the data demonstrate that ridging can bring clear ecological benefits in certain environments. However, where the soil requires tillage, common historical ridge types also absorb less labor per acre than level fields. In environments where ridge yields are comparable to level fields, the labor savings would have given ridging a competitive advantage, at least within preindustrial contexts. Regardless of any specific benefits, even where farmers once formed ridges for the majority of their crops, the Industrial Revolution altered both land tenure and technology and shifted preference to level fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of imaginings of 'Europe' is increasingly closely intertwined with the institutions of the European Union (EU). Constitutional reform of the EU is therefore a crucial moment in the production and reproduction of European imaginaries and requires a cultural geography analysis of the public debates surrounding it and the resulting voting patterns. French and Dutch citizens, in referenda on 29 May and 1 June 2005 respectively, rejected the ratification of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. This article examines the highly contested visions of political elites and citizens in these two countries to explore how Europe is imagined and re-imagined in a period of rapid territorial and institutional change encompassing both the widening and the deepening of the EU. It focuses on two dimensions of integration: widening (ie. enlargement) and deepening (ie. institutional reforms towards more integration) and the associated visions of 'Europe' and 'European-ness.' Questions addressed include “who belongs to Europe and who does not?” (with regard to widening), and “what belongs to European competencies and what should be done nationally or locally?” (with regard to deepening). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]