Europe and the Everyday: Subjectivities, Identities, Contestations. An Introduction

The implications of European political and social integration processes impact both the (supra-)national institutional level and the individual level. Focusing on the individual perspective of experience of EU citizens, understood through the prism of theories of modern subjectivities, in the context of Europeanization processes, makes their everyday experiences and practices the central reference frame. Transnationalization processes, such as European integration, are linked with conflicts and questions of identity that manifest and are negotiated in the everyday lives of Europeans. EU citizens are thus understood as active and shaping members within the social structure through processes of subjectivation. In addition to laying the concept ground for the entire book, the introduction also presents the key argument of the individual book chapters, addressing how contestations over Europe and the EU figure in everyday life and how European integration shapes individual (social and political) subjectivities and identities.