Identity Research and the Europeanisation of Identity

This chapter elaborates on the current state of the art in identity research within the context of Europeanised identities and social identity more generally. Based on an understanding of identity as a tripartite structure of identifications, self-understandings and forms of communality (Brubaker and Cooper, Theory Soc 29(1):1–47, 2000), it highlights where such aspects have already been picked up in the wider academic debate on sports. Moreover, such a three-dimensional notion of identity also allows for a critical discussion of the shortcomings of the established, mostly political science-driven, “European identities”-literature. Finally, a more recent strand of the debate is introduced, which breaks with the latter’s focus on more conventionally political topics, instead shifting our attention to the leisure world’s/everyday life’s impact on identity dynamics.