Paper short abstract:

This paper engages with publications on the cosmopolitan character of Europe. It examines the role of 'talk about culture' - including writings on a cosmopolitan recognition of cultural difference - in relation to changing governance forms in EU-Europe, with a focus on Turkey's accession process.

Paper long abstract:

Recent years brought a flurry of publications on the 'cosmopolitan' or 'postnational' character of the European Union (EU) (see Beck 2004, Beck & Grande 2004, Delanty 2005, Habermas 2001, Rumford 2005, 2007). Cosmopolitan approaches to the EU characteristically argue that Europe is already cosmopolitan in some respects and propose ways through which Europe should become (more) cosmopolitan. The recognition of (cultural) difference is described as a defining element of such a cosmopolitan Europe. However, in public and political debates around Turkey's possible membership in the EU as well as the position of Islam in Europe more generally, 'Culture Talk' (Mamdani 2004) rather than 'toleration of the other' appears as the characteristic feature of the politics of the moment. How do such, apparently diverging, talks about culture articulate with processes of changing governance relations in EU-Europe? This paper examines cosmopolitan theories in light of the increasing concern with 'cultural diversity' in political philosophy on the one hand and the transformation or 'rescaling' of governance structures in EU-Europe on the other hand. How are normative visions of Europe constructed through talk about culture? What do such normativities accomplish in struggles around the expansion and transformation of governance structures in an increasingly neoliberal EU-Europe? The paper broaches these questions through the lens of Turkey's accession process to the EU.

Paper short abstract:

The presentation will investigate processes in the field of culture, main cultural agents and their practices in Slovenia, and with a comparative scanning of the situations and transformations in the region. The topic will be presented in the perspective of general global and particularly European processes, in the view to determine apprehension of culture (“cultural turn”) in European societies.

Paper long abstract:

The presentation will investigate processes in the field of culture in Slovenia, and with a comparative scanning of the situations and transformations in three neighbouring states - Italy, Austria and Croatia. The topic will be presented in the perspective of general global and particularly European processes, in the view to analyse the chances they have under their present cultural policies. The cultural sphere, as it was constituted in the early modern Europe, is presently undergoing dramatic transformations under the impact of contradictory processes. Both its internal articulations and the ways how cultural practices connect with other social practices are rapidly changing within the global social restructuring. If, in the early modern Europe, the emergence of "culture" was a non-capitalist condition of the triumph of capitalist economy - its present "dissolution" may well indicate the irruption of cultural practices into the heart of capitalist economy as a condition of its next cyclical transformation. What may seem as a mere extension of market economy towards the domains that have traditionally been withdrawn from it, may well be their affirmation as the key factor of the new capitalist economy. What seem to be mere conflicts over the distribution of profits (intellectual property rights, cultural entrepreneurship…) may well be aspects of a major global struggle over the most propulsive resources of production. Under these particular tensions and conflicts, a new geopolitical map of the world is being created.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how the persistence of ‘culture talk’ has played into the formation of a European cultural policy and interrogates the type of governance that this formation entails as pressing political issues such as European integration have been relayed from realm of social and economic policy to that of culture.

Paper long abstract:

In the framework of the European Union, culture has been identified both as an obstacle to European integration and as a means to transcend this very obstacle. Recent arts and culture funding initiatives that have the professed goal of fostering cultural co-operation and exchange speak to conceptualizations in which cultural production is presented as vital for Europeanization. However, the formation of a European cultural policy has proven difficult, partly because of the Union's proclaimed principle to grant its member states cultural sovereignty, and because 'cultural dialogue' and 'artistic exchange' programs tend to reproduce power differentials within the EU and beyond, intentions to the contrary.

This paper interrogates the emergence of European cultural policy against the backdrop of the democratic deficit frequently diagnosed within the EU, and the sharpening economic disparities within and between member states - and proposes that the turn to culture is neither a mere veiling of the pursuit of economic gains from cultural goods nor a solely discursive feat. Instead current EU cultural policy represents a shift in governance; one that increasingly deflects pressing political issues such as immigration and integration into the realm of culture, rather than that of social justice for instance.

Based on ethnographic observations in the arts worlds of Berlin and Istanbul this paper aims to elucidate the parameters of this nascent European cultural policy and the type of governance that appears to emerge out of the conjoining of an array of divergent efforts from artist, cultural producers, policy makers and nongovernmental institutions.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on the fieldwork in a western Macedonia, I will show how the logic of the ethnic compartmentalization resulting from the changes in the macedonian legislation, has been reflected on the local level in a multi-religious community.

Paper long abstract:

One of the preconditions for the Republic of Macedonia accession to the European Union is the significant progress of the implementation of the Ohrid Framework Agreement. The Accord, signed by the leaders of Macedonian and Albanian parties in the town of Ohrid in August 2001, put an end to the six-month military conflict between the Albanian paramilitary forces and the Macedonian government's army. The main objective of the Framework Agreement has been an equitable representation of the two dominant ethnic communities living in Macedonia (mainly Macedonian Albanians and Macedonians) in the public institutions of the state through provisions concerning more proportional power sharing and political decentralization in the country. From the outset the Accord itself, as well as its implementation, have been criticized for the defacto strengthening political segmentation of Macedonia along the ethnic and the religious lines. Paradoxically enough, the Framework Agreement, which is supposed to convey a spirit of common European values, seems to diffuse an idea of cultural separateness. Drawing on my fieldwork research in a western Macedonian village, I will show how the practical logic of ethnic compartmentalization which has resulted from the specific implementation of the Framework Agreement has been reflected on the local level in a mixed Muslim and Christian orthodox local community. More specifically, I will focus on actions undertaken by some local leaders to recast the religious boundary in a village as an ethnic boundary. Looking at my fieldwork materials through the prism of the distributive conception of culture, I will analyze variation in the local responses to ethnification of religious difference. Rejecting the dogma of the necessary overlap between religion, ethnicity, and culture, I will examine various ways of religious boundary making and maintainance, and also the cross - boundary bonds of mutuality which the social boundaries actually entail.

Paper short abstract:

One of the most controversial aspects of Turkey's candidacy to European Union has been the status of religious minorities in this 'Muslim' country. This paper aims to problematize secularist policies both in Turkey and in Europe as a source of inequality in the status of religious minorities.

Paper long abstract:

One of the most controversial aspects of Turkey's candidacy to European Union has been the status of religious minorities in this 'Muslim' country. Europe's accession requirements on the improvement of the rights of the non-religious minorities have been regarded by some a breach of Turkey's sovereignty over her subjects. In Turkey, this has been perceived as a continuation of the "imperialist" mentality of the "Great Powers of Europe" dating back to 19th Century and partition of the Ottoman Empire.

From a European perspective, Turkey as a 'Muslim' country has to be supervised in the treatment of her (especially Christian) religious minorities. Among other things, by this perception of Turkey's (mis)treatment of her religious minorities on the basis of Islam, rather than understanding it as a nation-state's sovereignty claim over its subjects, Europe establishes 'religion' -rather than secularism- as the basis of inequality in rights.

Trying to go beyond this dichotomous understanding of 'European imperialism' vs. 'religion as the cultural basis of rights' this paper aims to problematize secularist policies both in Turkey and in Europe as the main source of inequality in the status of religious minorities.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the development of the concept of intangible (or cultural) heritage and its governance over the last 20 years in relation to the ascendance of diversity as a central value of Western societies. Rather than regarding cultural fundamentalism and ethonational movements as the “reverse side” of intercultural dialogue, I suggest the paradoxical predicament that notions of diversity and ethnonational sentiment are coproduced by a number of processes in post socialist late capitalism.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the development of the concept of intangible (or cultural) heritage and its governance over the last 20 years in relation to the ascendance of diversity as a central value of Western societies. Culminating with the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Heritage, which entered into effect in April 2006, intangible heritage governance emphasizes the awareness of a common human heritage and the preservation of cultural diversity through the focus on the reproduction of the practices of particular bounded groups. Arguing that intangible heritage efforts may contribute to the deployment of language that stresses mutual exclusivity and incommensurability, this paper examines difficulties which projects in post socialist Europe focused on intangible heritage have faced due to tensions between the universal and particular and bounded and processual notions of culture. I then draw upon my own research on Hungarian folk revival in Hungary and Romania, where efforts at the reproduction of intangible heritage can be said to intersect with ethnonational movements. Rather than regarding cultural fundamentalism and ethonational movements as the "reverse side" of intercultural dialogue, I suggest the paradoxical predicament that notions of diversity and ethnonational sentiment are coproduced by a number of processes in post socialist late capitalism, most notably connected to "civil society" focused projects and changing relations of property.

Paper short abstract:

Both the concept of ethnicity and its alternatives - transnationalism and super-diversity notions – need to account for dominant discourses of exclusion towards migrants. The current and recent dominant discourse of exclusion towards migrants in The Netherlands cannot be undestood as racism. It respresents a qualitatively new kind of exclusionary discourse that curbs transnationalism and super-diversity, and favours ethnic group formation.

Paper long abstract:

Substantive concepts of ethnicity have guided many studies of migrants in The Netherlands and elsewhere. Critique has come from transnationalism and super-diversity perspectives. All these approaches need to account for dominant discourses of exclusion towards migrants. Here critical race theory comes into view. However, the conceptualization of the current Dutch dominant discourse of exclusion towards migrants in terms of racism is far from self-evident. The question is raised whether critical race theory sheds light on this discourse or whether this discourse is qualitatively new and unprecedented.

Based on a critical discussion of critical race theory, of this migrants hostile discourse in The Netherlands dominant since 2000, and of the ways in which it works out for migrants in work settings (based on fieldwork), several conclusions are made. First, this discourse differs from critical race theory in several ways. It differs in its classifications and it draws on different ideological sources. It mirrors the mutual ethnization processes that relational approaches of ethnicity and group formation (Barth, Simmel) point to. Second, also the ways in which it works out for migrants are different. Cultural submission leads to a combination of limited border-crossing plus positioning in subordinated positions in society.

The current migrants hostile discourse in The Netherlands cannot completely be understood by substantive conceptions of ethnicity, by super-diversity notions, nor by critical race theory. Ethnic group formation is not self-evident, but may be the outcome of exclusionary discourses, countering super-diversity. This discourse needs to be understood in its own terms.