CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Pozzoni, Federico |
|---|---|
| Title | Shaping Young Europeans. An Ethnography of the Erasmus+ : Youth in Action Program |
| Summary | My thesis investigates the Erasmus+: Youth in Action Program as the main field of construction of a supranational European identity for young people in the European Union. Through the lenses of nationalism studies and ethnography, I look at how the imagination of such a supranational community trickles down from above, and observe how the understanding of belonging to a European community is retained from below. For the top-down perspective, I consider the critical discourse analysis of the official communications by the European Commission and one semi-structured interview with an expert in the implementation of the Program. In particular, my research highlights the official aims and background strategies to instill the sense of belonging to a European community through the focus on employability, civic participation and international mobility. For the bottom-up perspective, I assume an insider ethnographic position following the local and international network of two Italian NGOs involved in the Program. I analyze the results of three group discussions conducted with beneficiaries of the Program and examine the importance of non-formal education and interculturality in their European identification. The combination of such different perspectives finally permits the account of this supranational identity in the making through a process simultaneously conceived and analyzed from above and from below, encompassing both symbolic and instrumental conceptualizations. |
| Supervisor | Váradi, Luca |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/pozzoni_federico.pdf |
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