ABSTRACT
The discussions on the constructions of Europe, as with those on the constructions of the country, began in the abstract, leaving the group to put forward their own discourses and meanings. ‘Europe’ was usually introduced about halfway through the discussion, after an exploration of what ‘the country’ meant to them: I would say that we had talked about what feeling say, Polish, meant to them, and ask if they sometimes felt that they were also European. Very often, this was initially interpreted as being a member of the European Union and focused on the civic components of ‘being European’, as explored in the previous chapter. But asking if there were any distinctive characteristics of Europeans, as opposed to European Union citizens, led to discussion of whether there was such a thing as a European culture and, if so, whether it encompassed them.
