Identity politics of the promotional videos of the European Heritage Label

ABSTRACT

During past decades, the EU has responded to a variety of ‘crises’ by promoting a common cultural heritage to advance European identity and belonging. This article analyses identity politics conducted in the framework of the EU’s flagship heritage action, the European Heritage Label. I borrow from ‘banal nationalism’ to scrutinise the usage of ‘we’ and ‘us’ in the promotional videos of the European Heritage Label sites as subject positions offered for identification in this heritage discourse. Analysis shows that the subject positions are constituted by an emphasis on the national level, preservation of the past for future generations and the key role of experts in the process of heritage. Although the heritage agents talk about Europe (representation) they do not identify with that as ‘us’. By making the lack of ‘banal Europeanness’ in the videos visible the article shows the ambiguities of European identity politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity politics
• heritage
• European Heritage Label
• European Union
• discourse
• identification

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Sigrid Kaasik-Krogerus is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She currently works in the research project Legitimation of European Cultural Heritage and the Dynamics of Identity Politics in the EU (EUROHERIT), funded by the European Research Council. From 2015 to 2018 she was a member of the Jean Monnet Module East within Europe funded by the Erasmus+ at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki. Kaasik-Krogerus specialises in media and communication, identity politics, heritage, and European studies in the context of the EU.

ORCID

Sigrid Kaasik-Krogerus http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6424-5520

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the H2020 European Research Council and innovation programme [grant number 636177] (EUROHERIT).