Search

Social movement scholars have been actively debating the importance of organizational structures for solidarity and new social movements. This article investigates how queer festivals build on the horizontal structure legacy of those movements, constructing their own prefigurative models through a set of specific organizational practices. Queer festivals constitute a dynamic repertoire of action of queer politics in Europe, expanding across the continent. Based upon their belief in the limits of strict identity politics of gender and sexuality, queer festivals attempt to construct new identities, based upon their anti-identitarian ethos. Beyond their discursive frames, queer festivals, as prefigurative spaces, attempt to build their new identities through specific practices, reflected among others on their organizational choices. The article posits three key elements for the prefigurative model that queer festivals attempt to build: (1) Squats as the spaces in which queer movement actors build their anti-authoritarian identity; (2) the organizational choice based on horizontality; (3) the role of the Do-It-Yourself model for festivals' deployment. Insight into queer festivals is based on ethnographic research conducted in five European capitals, including semi-structured interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of demoi-cracy, which proposes to base democratic institutions not on one demos but on multiple co-existing demoi, has gained increasing popularity in debates about the democratization of the European Union. Existing models of demoi-cracy have, however, paid relatively little attention to the qualities that Europeans would need to possess in order to effectively participate in European politics as demoi-cratic citizens. This contribution seeks to identify these qualities; it then looks at empirical evidence to assess whether it is realistic that Europeans will, at least in the medium term, be able to live up to these requirements. While there are some indications that Europeans adapt their patterns of political participation to demoi-cratic requirements, the danger remains that institutionalizing a system of demoi-cracy would further accentuate the existing participatory inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais is the property of Centro de Estudos Sociais and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Przeglad Socjologiczny is the property of Lodz Scientific Society / Lodzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

What are the myths of Europe? This article provides the conceptual framework through which this question may be approached. It begins by defining myth in such a way as to distinguish it from other forms of political symbolism and points to the distinction between cultural and political myths. From here, the relationship between mythical and historical narratives is analyzed via a study of how the main narrative cores through which Europeans have perceived themselves have worked in different periods and contexts as both. It concludes with a more detailed analysis of some of the icons that convey the myths of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for a robust notion of collective identity which is not reduced to a psychological conception of identity. In the first part, the debate on the concept of identity raised by several authors is taken up critically with the intention of defending a strong sociological conception of identity which by definition is a collective identity. The basic assumption is that collective identities are narrative constructions which permit the control of the boundaries of a network of actors. This theory is then applied to the case of Europe, showing how identity markers are used to control the boundaries of a common space of communication. These markers are bound to stories which those within such a space of communication share. Stories that hold in their narrative structures social relations provide projects of control. National identities are based on strong and exclusive stories. Europeanization (among other parallel processes at the global level) opens this space of boundary constructions and offers opportunities for national as well as subnational as well as transnational stories competing with each other to shape European identity projects. The EU -- this is the hypothesis -- provides a case in which different sites offer competing opportunities to continue old stories, to start new stories or to import old stories from other sites, thus creating a narrative network on top of the network of social relations that bind the people in Europe together. European identity is therefore to be conceived as a narrative network embedded in an emerging network of social relations among the people living in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic farming movements in Europe are widely recognised as a positive force by market actors and civil society, as well as relevant actors in policy networks. At the same time, the organic movement is in a process of self-reflection, reconsidering its value basis. Taking account of both a policy network and a social movement perspective, this article seeks to understand political action of the organic sector. Making use of a cross-country comparison of European organic farming policy networks, it conceptualises the consequences of such action with regard to political influence and the identity of the organic farming movement. While different strategies are employed to influence politics, a space needs to be opened up within the movements for continuous innovation and the re-construction of a collective identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processes of European identity formation are analysed here in terms of identity work and, specifically, relationship (interplay) between biographical and collective identity work. First sections of the text (1 and 2) are focussed on grounding the approach in a range of theoretical orientations (symbolic interactionism and culturalist perspectives), on outlining its methodological implications (the rationale for using the method of autobiographical narrative interviewing and various methods of text analysis), and, finally, on developing research questions and preliminary analytical dimensions of studying the collective identity work, especially in relation to European identity work, the latter being based on results of the author's research on the minority nation society of Wales (e.g. collective identity constructions, and figurations, in terms of cultural periphery / centre, hybridity, and marginality). In the next step of analysis, these preliminary questions and dimensions are related to problems of European identity work in general. In the next section (3) overall heuristic strategies of the offered project are formulated: the attitude of refractive self-reflection, the dialogical principle of calibrating research interactants' perspectives, a multi-layer approach to the interplay between individual experiences and a variety of collective meaning resources, the strategy of contrastive comparison of studied cases and, finally, the zooming procedure of focussing (coding) empirical materials. The last section of the text (4) relates to the objectives / expected products of the project concerning dimensions and integrated model of collective identity work in Europe, and their practical implications for a range of social / political activities in education, legislation, governance, as well as for NGOs, social arenas and social movements [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For some, the transnationalization of political action and communicative space in the European Union heralds an emergent cosmopolitan order. Need that be so? There are supranational institutions in the EU as well as transnational political and cultural spaces and cross-border communicative flows. However, the Union's member states remain key controllers of citizenship rights and purveyors of collective identities. And for many purposes they still maintain strongly bounded national public spheres. Because the EU's overall character as a polity remains unresolved, this has consequences for the organization of communicative spaces. The EU is a field of tensions and contradictions that is inescapably rooted in institutional realities. Wishful thinking about cosmopolitanism can get in the way of clear analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article recounts the history of the numerous attempts to create or promote a European identity through television and explores the reasons for their failure. From the 1950s, engineers of the European soul, with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) playing a central part, resorted to a variety of technologies and genres: simultaneous live broadcasts in Eurovision, news exchange, later satellite television, highbrow drama and popular entertainment notably with the Eurovision song contest. Even when they reached an audience, these attempts failed with respect to their main aim, as they were based on a false, deterministic view of television as a medium and on a dated, communicative view of the nation where media have the power to shape collective identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]