Negotiating identities in 'Europe'

Negotiating identities in Europe deals with the issue of identities of minority nationalities within Europe through two left-of-centre minority nationalist parties: the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and the Scottish National Party (SNP). In the context of the European political debate about the future of Europe, the author attempts to further the debate by approaching it from a less well-known and often overlooked polemic perspective. The aim of the author therefore is to explore how the ERC and the SNP discursively construct the political and social role of the EU and whether their discourses contribute to the redefinition of a European political and institutional identity. The material chosen for the analysis consists of the speeches, comments and declarations produced by both parties respective MEPs from 2004 to June 2006. Through the perspective presented here, an interdisciplinary approach to researching minority nationalism and the European Union is taken, combining various strands of social sciences and humanities as well as proposing a methodological approach using linguistic and discourse-based research.