Chris Rumford

Didem Buhari-Gulmez

European Multiplicity does not conform to the expectations of a narrow EU studies agenda wherein European integration is seen as the destiny for the continent, each country (including non-members) being compelled to seek a place in an unfolding order “united in diversity”. Rather, the book demonstrates the benefits of an agenda shift, away from an overriding concern with integration towards a consideration of the possibility that a singular ‘Europe’ may not exist and that the multiplicity of Europe is all around us. As the chapters in this volume highlight, multiplicity reveals itself across the range of EU studies as a key dimension in Europe’s transformation. Multiplicity is evident both in cases where official EU policy exists (labour migration, citizenship, regional policy) and in areas which are central to European life more generally (multiculturalism, multilingualism, the public sphere, Euroscepticism). The idea of “European multiplicity” also challenges the established notion that plurality can be accounted for in terms of identity politics. Moreover, it confronts the tendency to see Europe in terms of binaries, such as East/West, old/new, North/South, core/periphery, Christian/Muslim, EU members/non-members, and top-down/bottom-up. A core feature of this book is the establishment of the viability of an approach to studying Europe which does not rely on the binaries upon which thinking about identity is all-too-often based. “Many Europes” is one of the growing issues in EU scholarship, no longer confined to the margins of European Studies. The book makes a compelling case for the idea that Europe is best understood in terms of its inherent multiplicity.

European Multiplicity

The extent to which ordinary people can construct, shift, and dismantle borders is seriously neglected in the existing literature. The book explores the ability of citizens to participate in the making of borders, and the empowerment that can result from this bordering and debordering activity. ‘Borderwork’ is the name given to the ways in which ordinary people can make and unmake borders. Borderwork is no longer only the business of nation-states, it is also the business of citizens (and indeed non-citizens). This study of ‘borderwork’ extends the recent interest in forms of bordering which do not necessarily occur at the state’s external borders. However, the changing nature of borders cannot be reduced to a shift from the edges to the interior of a polity. To date little research has been conducted on the role of ordinary people in envisioning, constructing, maintaining, shifting, and erasing borders; creating borders which facilitate mobility for some while creating barriers to mobility for others; appropriating the political resources which bordering offers; contesting the legitimacy of or undermining the borders imposed by others. This book makes an original contribution to the literature and stands to set the agenda for a new dimension of border studies. This book was published as a special issue of Space and Polity.

Chris Rumford

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