Europeanisation and new regionalism on the margins of Europe

The fall of socialism or communism in the early nineties of the past century has brought the processes of democratisation, liberalisation and promotion of the European Union's regional policies, which stimulated the reappearance of local autonomy, especially in those areas where the ‘Otherness’ and distinctiveness of the local population previously represented a threat to the national unity of totalitarian systems. The principal research area of this project is based in the municipality of Himarë/Himara in southern Albania. Building on the results of a long-term anthropological research in the mentioned area it was observed that the breakdown of the communist system has led to re-naming and removal of symbols of the previous era and re-writing of the history. The latter is marked by a general reversion to and reconstruction of the ancient past of Himarë/Himara, on the basis of which the local people reconstruct the autonomy and distinctiveness of the mentioned area. The core hypothesis suggests that in the process of reconstruction of the past the people of Himarë/Himara reconstruct their regional belonging and constitute their place as a distinct 'region', which is included and/or excluded from ‘Europe’. The proposed research project will try to illustrate and examine the local imageries and ideals of the ‘Europe’, which often tends to be equated with the European Union as a political unit. ‘Europe’ as an imaginary entity is often synonymously used with aspirations for a better future, modernisation and particularisation of the local population. One of the basic aims of this research is to illustrate and explain how the local elites, elderly population, youth, returnees and emigrants reconstruct themselves and ‘their’ place as being part of and/or on the margins of ‘Europe’. The intention of the project is to analyse the everyday practices, discourses and power mechanisms through which people continuously define their place, identity and belonging in the view of geographically, politically and historically shifting frontiers.