Managing the Unmanageable Resource: Multiple Utility and Quality in the EU Policy Discourses on Local Identity

Identity is doubtless one of the most complex and contentious terms of the contemporary social lexicon, a term that crosses over several fields and a number of argumentative and operative practices. The identitarian phenomenon is characterized by a peculiar complexity;1 it moves in a precarious balance through socio-existential and rational dimensions, floating between uniqueness and multiplicity, conservation and evolution, authenticity and fiction.