“We and the others”

Europeanization and the search for identity – an interview with the ethnologist Bernhard Tschofen

As Europe is currently in the process of redefining the meaning of culture, the management of identities has started to play an ever increasing role. The Institute for European Ethnology is staging a symposium entitled “Managing Identities” to explore everyday cultural trends and culture as dimensions of life.

Manuela Hötzl: What will your “Managing Identities” symposium be about? Identity is a somewhat hackneyed term these days. What is the main focus?
Bernhard Tschofen: To put it briefly, the “Managing Identities” symposium will explore current transformations or processes of change in Europe from a cultural studies’ perspective.Identity is intended to be more than just an empty concept and should instead be used with reservation in any self-critical scientific research. As this term has been so much on the public agenda these days, we believed that it should also be taken seriously. Admittedly, it has been deconstructed time and again, but as our title suggests we use “managing identities” deliberately. In other words, what is at issue is not so much the singular form of the term as the plural. Our interest lies primarily in the societal pluralism of Modernity and not so much in the identity of a given region.

What struck me about the symposium’s program is that there are plenty of references to problematic, controversial issues.
This is correct. As a cultural science, European ethnology makes it its business to act as an arbiter whenever culture is used either as an argument for whitewashing social inequalities - arising from current turmoil and change in what is called the New Europe - or as an excuse for erecting new boundaries. Our discipline is not solely oriented towards the future but also deals with ethnology’s past. The fact that national ethnology has been dependent upon the nation state and its nationbuilding processes obliges us to reflect on the matter.Ethnology investigating everyday culture

How does the field of ethnology deal with processes of Europeanization?
European ethnology is not confined solely to the paradigm of major social-science theories. Instead, it attempts to make everyday culture tangible and comprehensible. Ethnography is a tool for looking at the grammar of the inconspicuous and unquestioned. After all, globalization is not just a dynamic afflicting large political movements. The more pressing question for us is this: What cultural changes are occurring in everyday life, in the way people shop, for example, or in the safety nets provided by the welfare state? We view everything from the perspective of the changes occurring in the EU.

What specific examples do you have in mind?
I have been focusing lately on a small Polish community, which is also a large Viennese community. My work revolves not so much around the out-fashioned questions of original community versus host community or assimilation. Instead, I have attempted to approach present-day migration from a new perspective. Take for instance these people from small villages in Southern Poland. They are migrants engaged in a lot of commuting and in living a multi-locality existence – partly for reasons of security, partly because the border policies of the EU have forced them to. Although it often exacts a high price, this mobility enables them to acquire a better standard of living. Furthermore, it puts transculturalism into practice, transforming the latter into a genuine reality. I am investigating how these people utilize and reflect upon this social interstitial space, not only by designing new “mental maps” for themselves but also by trying to make sense of their way of living.

Europe as a chance, as an opportunity, that is the main tenor here. As an ethnologist, don’t you take a critical stance on this? Don’t you have to?
Of course, the point is to follow these processes of Europeanization from a critical perspective. However, our focus is on a particular aspect, namely: Where is culture also used as an argument to erase social differences? Critically monitoring the transformations in East and West also requires field research and pitching your tent in all those places where transnational developments are taking effect. Never before has it been as important for European ethnology as it is right now to do so. We have to examine the “others” among us, in our own country. The regions, in contrast, play an important role for understanding Europe as a network, as the very notion of culture is currently being remodelled in correspondence to a European mindset. This also applies to states outside the actual borders of the EU, where a kind of anticipatory Europeanization can be observed.

How does it manifest itself?
One aspect is the protection of the EU borders – shielding the EU from its others - which far exceeds the former “Iron Curtain”. Another is the strong orientation of countries such as the Ukraine towards the EU. There is an enormous interest for EU framework programs here. The problem is they interpret the changes occurring in their own countries against the backdrop of Europe. This has many ramifications and is demonstrated in the establishment of keywords or in their policies on cultural assets. Items from the popular cultural heritage are symbolically incorporated into the process, for instance, Marx and Lenin monuments have been replaced by the poet Taras Shevchenko. Simultaneously to the process of nation-building in the Ukraine, in the Western part of the country a tendency towards strong regionalization can be observed – according to the rules of the game dictated by the New Europe.

To which extent is Europe’s heterogeneity restrictive?
The processes just described have supplied us with knowledge on how to solidify identities, to draw boundaries, and transfer the process to the various countries and regions - according to the motto “We and the others.” That is why nowadays we must engage in critical self-examination concerning the consequences of our knowledge. In dizzying heights of oratory, politicians often utilize exclusion as a powerful argument, drawing lines, boundaries that exclude others. At the same instant we register delimitation and the abolishment of borders, for instance the borders of the nation state. But bear in mind, while on the face of it borders are being eliminated, they are in fact merely being shifted. The new boundaries drawn do not merely refer to spatial divisions; instead, factors such as gender or social structures are revealed as decisive.

Have the new EU member countries - as newcomers to Europe - been pressured into creating their own identity?

One of the motives for this conference is to bring together scientists from all over Europe. Misunderstandings often prevail between different national scientific traditions - arising from differences in regard to historical conditions. Our question is the following: What meaning does science have for society, what are its tasks? We want to dig deeper whenever identity is used for political purposes, whenever inequality is being legitimized or covered up.

To which extent are we ready for selfexamination with regard to our own history? What are the differences between East and West?
You must be on your guard when thinking along these lines. There are a lot of only insufficiently examined nooks and crannies in everyday life. Neither do we have a monopoly on reflection nor are we in a position to teach Eastern European colleagues how something ought to be done. This would be wrong. Instead, we have a lot to learn from each other on this score. After all, the scientific field of European ethnology is not conceived in hegemonial terms - rather it is framed in the plural and recognizes “minor enthnologies” important contribution. Following the upheaval of 1989, also the West is in need of change. Europe will never be the same again. These processes reach into the innermost recesses of our societies. There is some pent-up demand on our part. As European ethnologists we investigate in detail how Europeanization is displayed in everyday life. In other words, in the way citizens communicate, in their symbolic interaction, and in the way in which the New Europe is materialized in laws and regulations.

Your priority then is an analysis of the current situation?
While we reflect and debate in historical terms, the questions are inspired by their current relevance. The main emphasis of this conference is on the analysis of new structures of meaning created by means of cultural heritage programs. They form the basis of the UNESCO ideology yet also push the European ideas of unity and of the diversity of the regions, while rendering Europe more cultural. That means the European culture is called upon to endow itself with a cultural format by following a certain scheme. Any representative of one of these regional projects who had to fill out EU application forms is well aware of the powerful impact these control instruments exert on everyday life.

When you mention scheme, is there something like a ten-step method on “How to become a region”?
Of course. Partly it pertain to cross-border activities, evaluation of tourism, economic revamping of regions aimed at relieving the burden of the huge agricultural budget, and at developing other markets. Essentially, regional tourism should get people on the track of nature and culture.

Could European Cultural Capitals serve to illustrate this point?
Several of my colleagues are currently investigating this issue insofar as it raises the question of culture’s spatial dimension. These are hybrid approaches, operating with references to places and regions - they are in the process of actually generating transculturalism and no longer any kind of containerized culture.

Is the term region itself turning into a new branded article of sorts?
Myths creation has a lot to do with labeling and with the way brands are invented. That is why concepts such as “city imaging” or “city advertising connect exciting, entertaining, or interesting events with a given cultural space. It is not enough to tell people that a certain region means this or that. They have to be able to experience it, it must be palpable. At issue is the experience of space itself. Festivals are classic examples for how culture is elicited by means of the physical body in space, i.e. by using all the five senses. This is what the term affective regionalism refers to. Going down on the regional level, however, in and of itself tells us very little about the possibilities of democractic participation and citizens’ involvement in the public.

Does religion play a prominent role in European culture?
Whenever the alleged boundaries/borders of Europe are concerned, the issue of religion is raised instantaneously. Here, too, religion is only one parameter for establishing identity in accordance with a patchwork approach. Ever since last decades’ wars in former Yugoslavia, the classical European debate has revolved around the exploitation of nationalistic sentiments. And that, in turn, encourages the drawing of lines or boundaries in terms of religion.

Is religion opposed to the idea of diversity and pluralism?
EU masterminds are busy with constructing symbolic integration. Culture is as powerful a weapon as economics, but what they lack is a heart-warming element. Throughout there have been proposals on how to integrate religion in its cultural-religious dimension. All these attempts have failed so far because of Europe’s aspiration of having to function perfectly everywhere - as only in this case the EU feels justified in adequately representing all its members.

Is France’s ban on the wearing of headscarves indicative of it?
This debate is confusing. To formulate it in the abstract, the co-existence of contradictions manifest in enlightened individuals also reflects a specific parallelism of Modernity. The fact that certain countries, societies and constitutions have a hard time acknowledging otherness as modern and ethically correct, is a fundamental problem.

Let’s return to culture: What role does it play in East and West?
Museums, for instance, represent arbitrary systems of order. Basically, they follow ethnology’s knowledge with regard to nation-building processes: “a nation of provinces”. Hence nation – reflecting a system of order that long prevailed in museums - has become subordinated to the meta-idea home. Then, as the first signs of the disintegration of the nation-state system appeared on the horizon, many started becoming suspicious of this idea. Nowadays we acknowledge that culture, in fact, has never been created and has never taken place in a narrow vessel, and that it has always been shaped by dynamic factors. Mobility is becoming increasingly prevalent in popular, everyday culture. This means to recognize that the phenomenon of regionalism cannot be conceived without globalization.

Which factors, in sum, will be important in the course of Europeanization?
Three conflicting points: Firstly, Europeanization is understood as EU unification –always keeping Eastern Europe in mind. Secondly, it is regarded as making up for processes of failed modernization – though neither of them adequately represents the truth. Thirdly, it is understood as continental version of globalization processes – accompanied by ambivalences inherent in political, economic and social transformations.

Is ethnology ideological or does an ethnologist remain a disinterested, objective scientific observer?
Officially it is not our intention to intervene directly in the developments outlined above. It would be naïve to do so. Also, our scientific discipline is applying its knowledge only hesitatingly because of the inglorious role it has played in the past. But major efforts are being made to take a reflective, selfexamining approach and to pay close attention to the manner in which arguments are being used in public – in other words, to ask where our own knowledge is coming from. After all, the worlds of everyday life, popular culture, the media, and scientific culture can no longer be neatly compartmentalized.They are all connected.