Contemporary studies of identity draw upon a wide range of
theoretical conceptualizations. Various epistemological turns, such as the
linguistic, narrative, and cultural turns that have characterized humanistic
and social scientific studies during the last decades have also had an influence
on the notions on identity in these fields. Scholars have emphasized identities
as discursive, narrative, and cultural processes, in which identity is
constantly being produced, varied, and altered in different expressions,
representations, and performances (Hall S., 1990; 1992; Bauman, 1992; Bhabha,
1994; Bohlman, 2009). With the concept of cultural identity scholars have
referred to common historical experiences and cultural codes, which are being
repeated in communities through various myths, narratives, and symbols (Hall
S., 1990; Giesen, 1991).
Besides the emphasis on the experience of unity through
these experiences and codes, the concept of cultural identity stresses the
significance of distinctions for the construction of identities (Hall S., 1990).
Cultural identities are created in a constant dialogue, negotiation, and
contest of similarity and difference, sameness and distinction. The constructed
and multilayered nature of cultural identity is a fundamental point of
departure in understanding such phenomena. Cultural identities can be
understood as processes taking various forms with respect to a particular time,
place, and discourse (Hall S., 1990; 1992).
Cultural phenomena are both manifestations of cultural
identities and spaces of negotiations and contests where their contents and
meanings are formed. In this article, locality, regionality, nationness, and
Europeanness are understood as discursive cultural identities, which are
represented and manifested in diverse cultural phenomena, texts, and cultural
communication. Due to their discursive nature, the meanings of cultural
identities and the interpretations of their representations vary among the
people. A city, a region, a nation, and a continent—in this case Europe—are
often discussed and ‘imagined’ in relation to geography.
All these entities have some kind of territorial
shape—boundaries that emerge and exist in various social practices, such as in
culture, governance, politics, and economy, and that are instrumental in
distinguishing them and their identities from others (Paasi, 2009a, p. 467). In
political studies and human geography, the connections between collective
sentiments and geography are often discussed together with the concept of
territorial identity (e.g., Paasi, 1996b; 2000; Marks, 1999). The concept of
territorial identity is used in recent studies on human geography in a loose
way referring to diverse discursively formed and constructed communities and
their representations.
The Influence of Cultural Competence on the Interpretations
of Territorial Identities in European Capitals of Culture Baltic Journal of
European Studies Tallinn University of Technology (ISSN 2228-0588), Vol. 4, No.
1 (16) Europe—and local, regional, national, and European cultural
identities—refer to are profoundly abstract and fluid constructions crossing
the administrative or fixed borders. Several scholars have made a theoretical
distinction between the collective territorial identity of the people living in
a particular place and the collective interpretation of the identity of the
place itself (Relph, 1976; Paasi, 2003; 2009b). In that case, the local
identity of the people is considered to be formed by the people’s awareness of
the place or a region and its particular characteristics combined with a
feeling of regional cohesion and togetherness amongst the inhabitants. The
communality of the people is strongly linked to the real and imagined qualities
of the places and the experiences of them. However, in practice the notions and
sentiments of the collective territorial identity of the people and the
identity of the place are intertwined in a number of ways (Paasi, 1996a, p.
209). In general, in the territorial identity building practices and
discussions on them, the concepts of culture and identity seem to approach each
other, so that identity is often seen as being manifested in culture and
culture is considered to determine identities.
A city, its physical and historical features, its
citizenship, and activities of its inhabitants are intertwined in a
multifaceted unity where the city’s features also define the identity of its
inhabitants. In turn, social networks give meanings to places. As Edward Said
(1985, p. 54) has noticed, social and cultural identities are framed and given
a background by anchoring them to particular places, landscapes, and
environments. Territorial cultural identities are discursive constructions
whose contents are flexible and which may be given diverse meanings depending
on what defines them. The same spatial territory may function as an arena for
multiple, even contradictory, notions of identities (e.g., Massey, 1995, pp.
67–68). According to the views of Zygmunt Bauman (1992) and Michel Maffesoli
(1996), the basis of the formation of communal identities in contemporary
culture lies in their expressive and performative nature.
Similar ideas have also been applied in recent studies on
the construction of territorial identities—the idea of performativity has been
particularly emphasized by several scholars (Kuus, 2007; Kaiser &
Nikiforova, 2008; Prokkola, Zimmerbauer & Jakola, 2012). In this article,
language use is understood as a performative act that produces the objects
people are describing and talking about. Several researchers have discussed and
theorized about different notions on territorial identities by describing these
notions as ‘thick’ or ‘thin’ on the basis of their essentialistic or
constructivist nature (e.g., Sack, 1997; Delanty, 2003; Axford, 2006; Davidson,
2008; Terlouw, 2012). Thick versions of identities are explained to appeal to
the (real or imagined) shared features and qualities of people. These shared
features are often rooted in common culture, history, and habits or other
concretized and historically narrated characteristics.
As opposed to this, thin versions of identities are
considered to be formed, for example, on the basis of legal rights,
constitutions, citizenship statuses, or economic or administrative interests.
Their nature is fluid, and they are grounded upon open and networked spatial
form and project-like organization. Did the audiences in the case ECOCs
perceive the territorial identities as ‘thick’ or ‘thin’? Did some social
determinants influence their perceptions on how territorial identities were manifested
in the ECOC events? Before answering these questions, theoretical views on
social structure and its impact on people’s value systems and behavior are
discussed more closely
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