The issue of European societies increasing cultural diversity and cultural contacts between local and migrant communities from a “bottom-up” perspective have been recently addressed in a series of publications based on biographical studies (Aarelaid-Tart and Bennich-Björkman 2012, Miller with Day 2012, Turk and Mrozowicki 2013) and also in a “documentary turn” of critical art production (Biermann 2008, Charleworth 2009, 2015). Whilst cultural hybridization is not a new phenomenon, “the pace of mixing accelerates and its scope widens in the wake of major cultural changes, such as new technologies that enable new forms of intellectual contact” (Pieterse 2007). This recent but uneven dynamic is asymmetrical not only in global, but also European relations.
Using narrative/biographical and visual data the author explores a range of factors which depict European individuals’ sense of identities and belonging in the increasingly culturally diverse communities of Europe. The methodological base for the analysis is the works of Pieterse 2007, Brubaker et al 2006, Guibernau 2013, and Lianos 2013 on the increasing hybridization of cultures, identity and locality and the author’s own research into cultural identities and majority-minority relations in Eastern and Central Europe (Nurse, 2015, 2013, 2011; Nurse and Sik, 2011). The analysis addresses interaction between communities, the effect of ethnic and minority cultures upon national and European counterparts, and the methods local and migrant populations use to adjust to their new cultural realities. The paper analyses means by which different ethnic minorities and transnational migrants express their cultural, ethnic, and national affiliations. An exploration of how cultural memories influence the way minority cultures position themselves between cultures of new homelands and retaining their own identities, specifically taking into account inter-generational dimensions of such affiliations. This is particularly relevant at times of economic uncertainty and political tensions that could prompt negative cultural and historic stereotypical images.
