scholarly journals Rewriting Universes: Post-Brexit Futures in Dave Hutchinson’s Fractured Europe Quartet

Humanities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 100
Author(s):  
Hadas Elber-Aviram
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
British Fiction ◽  
The Uk ◽  
English Nationalism ◽  
Hans Georg Gadamer

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a new strand of British fiction that grapples with the causes and consequences of the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union. Building on Kristian Shaw’s pioneering work in this new literary field, this article shifts the focus from literary fiction to science fiction. It analyzes Dave Hutchinson’s Fractured Europe quartet—comprised of Europe in Autumn (pub. 2014), Europe at Midnight (pub. 2015), Europe in Winter (pub. 2016) and Europe at Dawn (pub. 2018)—as a case study in British science fiction’s response to the recent nationalistic turn in the UK. This article draws on a bespoke interview with Hutchinson and frames its discussion within a range of theories and studies, especially the European hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer. It argues that the Fractured Europe quartet deploys science fiction topoi to interrogate and criticize the recent rise of English nationalism. It further contends that the Fractured Europe books respond to this nationalistic turn by setting forth an estranged vision of Europe and offering alternative modalities of European identity through the mediation of photography and the redemptive possibilities of cooking.

scholarly journals From the Stereotypification of the Non-European Other to the Prototypification of the European Self: A Case Study of Turkey’s Membership to the European Union from the French Perspective.

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariane Bogain ◽  
Florence Potot
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Press ◽  
Collective Psyche ◽  
Opinion Polls ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Eu

In an era of increased globalisation, the need for a sense of belonging and an identity is becoming more pressing. The way nations form images of others and, conversely, conscious or unconscious images of themselves is becoming increasingly important as these images impact on public opinion and on political and decision-making discourse. With the development of supranationalism in Europe, the age-old notion of European identity has come more and more to the fore. Conflicting interpretations and a general disinclination to consider the matter leave the notion of European identity as polysemic as ever. Furthermore, the expansion of the EU has contributed to blurring this notion, so much so that in the collective psyche, it has become closely linked to the membership of the European Union and it is proving sometimes difficult to dissociate one from the other. In this context, the debate surrounding Turkey’s membership of the EU gives an insight into prototypical and stereotypical representations of Europe. As the controversy has been particularly salient in France, the aim of this study is to explore the European self-conceptions and images of the other through the example of France’s opposition to Turkey’s membership of the EU. For this purpose, opinion polls and the Press will be used as forms of narrative in order to highlight these representations and how they have evolved in time. The first part of the study will concentrate on the arguments put forward to justify the opposition to Turkey joining the EU. The second part will then evaluate how the image of the other contributes to the prototypical representation French citizens have of Europe.

Are We All Europeans Now? Local, National and Supranational Identities of Young Adults

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Grundy ◽  
Lynn Jamieson
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Young Men ◽  
West Germany ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
The Uk

The continued expansion and deepening of the European Union state raises important questions about whether there will be a corresponding development of pro-supranational feeling towards Europe. This paper is based on data drawn from a European Commission (EC) funded project on the ‘Orientations of Young Men and Women to Citizenship and European Identity’. The project includes comparative surveys of ‘representative samples’ of young men and women aged 18-24 and samples of this age group on educational routes that potentially orient them to Europe beyond their national boundaries. This comparison of samples is made in paired sites with contrasting cultural and socio-political histories in terms of European affiliations and support for the European Union. The sites are: Vienna and Vorarlberg in Austria; Chemnitz and Bielefeld in East and West Germany; Madrid and Bilbao in Spain; Prague and Bratislava, the capitals of the Czech and Slovak Republics; Manchester, England and Edinburgh, Scotland in the UK. This paper examines patterns of local, national and supranational identity in the British samples in comparison to the other European sites. The typical respondent from Edinburgh and Manchester have very different orientations to their nation-state but they share a lack of European identity and disinterest in European issues that was matched only by residents of Bilbao. International comparision further demonstrates that a general correlation between levels of identification with nation-state and Europe masks a range of orientations to nation, state and Europe nurtured by a variety of geo-political contexts.

scholarly journals Weeding out the Roots? Migrant Identity in A.M. Bakalar’s Polish-British Fiction

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Martyna Bryla
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Cultural Adjustment ◽  
New Wave ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Problematic Relationship ◽  
Standards Of Living ◽  
British Fiction ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Voice

Poles are one of the largest non-UK born ethnic groups in all countries and most regions of the United Kingdom. Since Poland’s accession to the European Union in May 2004, thousands of Poles have migrated to the UK, hoping for better professional opportunities and higher standards of living. It was thus only a matter of time before Poles started to put their experience of migration on paper. One example is A.M. Bakalar, whose literary debut, Madame Mephisto (2012), was promoted as the voice of the new wave of Polish migration and the first novel to be written in English by a Polish female author since Poland joined the EU in 2004. This article centres on Bakalar’s protagonist, a thirty-year-old Pole in London, with the aim of revealing how cultural myths and beliefs feed into the process of identity formation and what it takes for the experience of migration to go awry. By exploring Magda’s problematic relationship with her home country, represented as oppressive and insular, this article inquiries into the nature of contemporary migrant experience and the role which national identity plays in the process of cultural adjustment.  

scholarly journals Migrant worker policies and national privilege: A UK case study

2021 ◽  
pp. 13-36
Author(s):  
Pier-Luc Dupont
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Migrant Worker ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Seasonal Workers ◽  
Iris Marion Young ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Uk

After a long period of decline in the Global North, migrant worker policies are making a comeback on the agenda of the European Union and several of its member states. Inspired by Iris Marion Young and Nancy Fraser’s accounts of structural injustice, this article argues that such policies cannot be reconciled with the principle of equality between migrant and national workers enshrined in international legal instruments such as the Convention on Migrant Workers and the EU Seasonal Workers Directive. To make this point it draws on a selection of UK based empirical literature as well as primary data from a recent study on domestic workers admitted to the UK under temporary visas since 1998. Results suggest that such visas tend to push migrants’ working conditions downwards (exploitation); prevent them from changing employer, enforcing rights in court or mobilising in unions (domination); and ultimately exacerbate racial conflict and stereotyping (stigmatisation). Received: 10 February 2021Accepted: 14 May 2021

Competing Visions: Discursive Articulations of Polish and European Identity after the Eastern Enlargement of the EU

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-356
Author(s):  
Magdalena Góra ◽  
Katarzyna Zielińska
Keyword(s):  
European Parliament ◽  
National Identities ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
New Members ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Supranational Level ◽  
The Eu

The enlargement of 2004 and 2007 significantly transformed the European Union in political, economic, and social terms. It also challenged the collective identities of Western Europeans as well as each of the newcomers. However, for new members, the prospect of joining a supranational political entity posed a threat to their newly established or regained sovereignty and nationhood. The integration triggered a process of redefinition of both their self-perception and the perception of Europe as a common project. The article offers a case study of how the Polish Members of the European Parliament discursively (re)construct national and European identities and how these constructions relate to each other. The analysis reveals three main visions of the European identity that are voiced by the Polish representation and corresponding visions of national identity. By focusing on the supranational level of the European Parliament and contextualising the analysed constructions with references to national debates, the study is able to nuance the existing theoretical accounts of European and national identities.

scholarly journals International obligations and devolved powers – ploughing through competences and GM crops

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annegret Engel ◽  
Ludivine Petetin
Keyword(s):  
International Level ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Crop Cultivation ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
International Obligations ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

This article analyses the impact of Brexit on devolved competences in environmental protection. It maps the post-Brexit division of the United Kingdom (UK)’s internal (devolved) and external (international) competences and how this may shift when competences are returned from the European Union (EU). Crucially, the article suggests that certain of these EU powers do not simply derive from the EU but are, in fact, already held by the devolved regions in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity. Consequently, devolved competences are under threat of being pre-empted as the UK seeks to harmonise otherwise fragmented policies and legislation to comply with obligations at international level. This conundrum is illustrated here using a case study on genetically modified crop cultivation, which identifies the conflicts in the UK’s proclaimed strategy post-Brexit between international obligations and devolved competences and the legal challenges this entails.

Assessing the vulnerability of shallow groundwater resources to deep subsurface energy activities (VoGERA)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Ward ◽  
Koen Beerten ◽  
Willem Zaadnoordijk ◽  
Cis Slenter ◽  
Marco Bianchi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Models ◽  
Groundwater Resources ◽  
Shallow Groundwater ◽  
Sedimentary Basins ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
Energy Technologies ◽  
Study Sites ◽  
The Uk

<p>Society is increasingly looking to the subsurface for our energy needs, be that for extracting geothermal energy, shale gas, or buffering heat, gas, or storing by-products of energy production. An increasingly crowded subsurface presents risks to groundwater relied on for water supply, since subsurface activities can introduce or release contaminants and alter subsurface properties. The VoGERA project is investigating the vulnerability of shallow groundwater from a range of subsurface energy technologies across different hydrogeological and geological settings within Europe. A suite of conceptual models compares the intrinsic vulnerability for different geological (crystalline, poorly consolidated and well consolidated sedimentary basins) and hydrogeological (basin centre and margins) conditions. They also consider the impacts of different subsurface activity types broadly categorised as those processes including injection, abstraction and a neutral fluid balance. Potential contamination pathways are being investigated at four case study sites; the Rauw Fault in Belgium, Panonian Basin in Hungary, The Peel Boundary Fault in the Netherlands and the Vale of Pickering in the UK. Geophysical, hydrological and hydrochemical data from these sites will be assessed in order to improve contamination pathway process understanding in a European setting. Findings from the case study sites will be used to evaluate the conceptual models and to develop a tool for decision makers and the public to assess the vulnerability to shallow groundwater from subsurface energy activities depending on the activity, and geological and hydrogeological conditions at a specific location. The VoGERA project is funded as part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 GeoERA network of projects under the Groundwater theme (Grant agreement number 731166).</p>

scholarly journals Altered chemical evolution in landfill leachate post implementation of biodegradable waste diversion

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (9) ◽  
pp. 857-868 ◽  
Author(s):  
SJ Warwick ◽  
P Durany-Fernandez ◽  
DJ Sapsford ◽  
PJ Cleall ◽  
MJ Harbottle
Keyword(s):  
Evidence Based ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Operational Parameters ◽  
Landfill Leachates ◽  
Municipal Solid Wastes ◽  
Biodegradable Waste ◽  
Consequent Reduction ◽  
Waste Diversion ◽  
The Uk

Within the UK implementation of the European Union Landfill Directive (1999) has led to the diversion of biodegradable waste (BW) from municipal solid wastes away from landfills. It has been widely anticipated, but thus far not verified, that the diversion of BW and consequent reduction in BW reaching landfill would lead to a change in the degradation processes occurring within landfills and that this would be reflected in an altered evolution in leachate chemistry compared to pre-Directive landfills. This paper provides evidence based on leachate chemistry from two operational landfills together with calculations of the reduced BW content, that demonstrate the acetogenic phase that characterised pre-Directive landfill leachates is missing and is now more typical of methanogenic phase leachate. The paper demonstrates how data from national datasets and detailed landfill records can be used to constrain likely and upper estimates of the amount of BW going into post-Directive landfills, and the observed change in the evolution of leachate chemistry which has resulted from a decrease in BW content from typical values of BW (pre-Landfill Directive) of 22% to an inferred 12% in the case-study landfills. Data provided here add to the growing literature that estimates the amount of BW in recent post-Directive landfills which importantly allow the quantitative linkage between a decrease in landfilled BW and observed changes in leachate chemistry to be established such that future landfill operators can increase confidence in the effect of Directive implementation on landfill operational parameters.

scholarly journals ‘People like that cannot be trusted’: populist and technocratic political styles, legitimacy, and distrust in the context of Brexit negotiations

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Farrand ◽  
Helena Carrapico
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Communication Styles ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Eu

Debates in and over the European Union (EU) are increasingly characterised as being based in arguments that are either ‘populist’ or ‘technocratic’. As systems of communication, this article argues, populism and technocracy possess dramatically different logics of argumentation, modes of communication and meaning-making, distinct narratives, with appeals to distinct sources of legitimacy. As such, actors adopting either political style construct their identity in a way that seeks to legitimise its own political action, while in turn delegitimising that of its opponents. This results in an atmosphere of distrust between actors using these different communication styles, making any form of negotiation or cooperation between them exceedingly difficult. In the context of the Brexit negotiations, which this article uses as a case study, the UK Government has adopted a populist style characterised by narratives of taking back control, legitimised by the will of the people, communicating often in a ‘low’ political style and using a narrative of crisis and threat. In comparison, the EU has adopted a technocratic style characterised by narratives of technical policy making and the need for rationality, legitimised through the laws, rules and processes by which it is governed, communicating in a ‘high’ political style while using a narrative of stability and continuity. These radically different views of the world have resulted in an increasing of tensions and distrust by the parties to Brexit negotiations that were already heightened by a sense of ‘betrayal’ over Brexit.

scholarly journals Envisaging post-Brexit immobility: Polish migrants’ care intentions concerning their elderly parents

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-494
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Radziwinowiczówna ◽  
Weronika Kloc-Nowak ◽  
Anna Rosińska
Keyword(s):  
Elderly Care ◽  
Direct Care ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Elderly Parents ◽  
New Policies ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Depth Interviews

The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union will end the European Freedom of Movement and the privileged migration status of EU Citizens in the UK, which will likely affect ‘Brexit families’ and their transnational care arrangements. This is a case study of the biggest migrant group in the UK, namely Poles. Before the Brexit referendum, the first wave of the in-depth interviews identified several types of migrants’ intentions concerning elderly care for their parents who remained in Poland. The research approached intentions as discursive strategies: declarations of care commitment and statements provided to explain the absence of care intentions. The second wave was conducted after the UK had decided to exit the EU and new policies concerning EU citizens were being developed. Brexit’s influence on elderly care intentions is twofold. First, it brings higher uncertainty about future migration regulations and disorientates migrants about the possibilities regarding reunification with their parents in the UK. Second, Brexit appears in the interviews as a discursive construction to alleviate a migrant’s involvement in direct care provision, where they still deem it normatively appropriate to enact this cultural norm, but do not intend to in fact do so.

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