Instructions for authors

Editorial Board

back    view    download

subscription based access article

Monica SPIRIDON

Cultural Identity: the Critique of the Cartographic Reason. A Transdisciplinary Approach

Romanian Journal of Journalism and Communication, issue 2 (31), year V (VIII), 2010

section: Communication

pages: 55-58

abstract

Although the concept of identity is a strategic and positional one, it is habitual for the common sense to think of European identity as unproblematic, and pointing to “essential” qualities. This calls for a contextual approach of the European identity building, tracking down the historical contingency and the plurality of the symbolic processes cloaked by it. My contribution draws on the interdisciplinary evaluation of several successive or simultaneous European projects such as: Mitteleuropa, Central Europe, also called East-Central Europe and the Balkans - as invented by Western politics, travelers and the popular press, after first world war. I will focus on the European identity building, seen as a discursive and a historical instance. This type of approach unravels the erratic meanings of the notion and the ways in which communities represent European identity especially in areas of cultural overlapping and hybridity.

keywords

representing identities; cultural geography; cultural studies

abstract (second language):

Nos propos portent sur la contribution des études européennes traditionnelles et respectivement des études culturelles à la cartographie identitaire européenne. On commence par passer en revue quelque unes des « Europes » les plus connues, telles que L’Europe Médiane, Mitteleuropa, les Balkans afin de révéler leurs agendas économiques, politiques, sociaux ou symboliques cachés. Par rapport à ce type d’approche plutôt contextuelle, prisée par les études européennes, la cartographie identitaire contemporaine exige une approche et des modèles différents, aptes à mettre en vedette la métamorphose inévitable de la notion d’espace au moment où il est converti en catégorie identitaire.

keywords (second language):

Etudes européennes ; études culturelles ; géographie culturelle

 Accredited Publication by the National Council of
 Higher Education Scientific Research (code 779), as B+, and indexed full text by EBSCO and ProQuest.