Mapping the Idea of Europe – Cultural Production of Border Imaginaries through Heritage

Abstract

In contrast to recent reinforcements of Europe's internal and external borders due to the refugee situation on the Mediterranean and the Covid-19 outbreak, talk of European borders has in the past decades focused on the freedom of mobility guaranteed by the Schengen treaty. In many senses, free intra-European mobility has become a recited truth in the EU discourse: a phrase that hides under its repetition the gap between its implied content and empirical realities of many of those who are affected by European borders' exclusive tendencies. Through the concept of borderscape, this article focuses on the role that cultural productsespecially maps exhibited at heritage siteshave in reciting ideas of European borders. In this context, ideas of European heritage are approached as a bordering practiceas an active process of creating, sustaining and challenging cultural border imaginaries and the many in/exclusion they imply. Empirically the article is focused on the European Heritage Label (EHL), a recent heritage action of the European Union (EU). The article asks what is the relationship between national and European representations of space; how are Europe's external borders represented; and what kind of cultural power hierarchies can be identified behind these representations? KEYWORDS Borderscapes; heritage; Europe; European Union If you were asked to imagine Europe in your head, what would you see? Would you see a collage of landscapes, cities, buildings, and people, a string of flags representing the many nation states of Europe, or would you perhaps envision a map: a simplified image where Europe in all its complexities is simplified on a piece of paper? (see Image 1). If you imagined a map, close your eyes and focus on that map once more. What does Europe look like, is it colorful, or is it painted in a single color? Are there any internal borders visible? Does Europe have any external boundaries, do they coincide with the European Union (EU), or does Europe expand outwards and blur into other regions without clear borders? Is there land visible below the Mediterranean? Can you see Greenland? What about Russia or Turkey? Can you place yourself on that map and imagine crossing the