ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 (“Introduction”) consists of two parts. The first part (“Why Study European Identities?”) explains why European identities are more than ever relevant, not only in the academic discourse but also for social and political Europe. This is illustrated by the Brexit, the Euro crisis and the most recent refugee crisis, their impact on European identification and the ongoing polarization tendencies in Europe, e.g., into liberal and inclusionary against illiberal and exclusionary attitudes and politics. The chapter also introduces theoretical key concepts of European identities and its interplay with other forms of geographically ethnically politically defined identities, e.g., the concepts of multiple identities, intertwined identities, and a common European identity versus a community of others. Furthermore it points to “research gaps” in the field of European identity and explains how this book seeks to fill these gaps by investigating European identities of members of ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe. The second part of Chapter 1 (“Content and Structure”) gives an overview on the structure of the book and the content of each chapter.
