Europe and the Everyday: Grassroots, EU and the Politics of Crisis

The aim of this Research Network is to forge an inter-disciplinary network of scholars working to examine the everyday politics of the EU and Europeanisation, and investigate how ʻEuropeʼ is embedded in the lived experience of ordinary individuals, communities and spaces. Thematically, we focus on Europeʼs contemporary dilemmas: austerity, the refugee crisis, the financial crisis and ʻBrexitʼ and the ways in which they are experienced socially, but also spatially. Our aim is to understand how political decisions and narratives take shape in daily lives of individuals and communities. We investigate four key questions: (1) What impacts do policies such as budget cuts have on individuals and communities, across different European contexts? (2) How have recent crises such as austerity and the refugee crisis, shaped the ways in which ʻEuropeʼ is understood and represented locally? (3) How do marginalised communities, and non-mainstream voters such as young people, engage with and experience, the idea of ʻEuropeʼ? (4) How is ʻEuropeʼ entrenched in local spaces, cities and neighbourhoods, and what spatial or geographic evidence can we observe?
In all questions, we will explore the extent to which ʻEUʼ and ʻEuropeʼ are understood as overlapping or disaggregated concepts.