Horizontal Europeanisation, socialization and multilayered collective identities in cross-border micro-spaces: the case of the Euro-city Cerveira-Tomiño

This article examines how horizontal ‘Europeanization’ shapes the reconfiguration of multilayered collective identities in cross-border micro-spaces by looking at Cerveira-Tomiño Euro-city. Whilst it is commonly argued that socialization processes from below may reinforce citizens’ affective ties with ‘Europe’, it remains unclear why this may result in different levels of support or may involve situations of rejection or benign neglect. Furthermore, given that these practices may take place in cross-border spaces operating within different state structures (i.e., decentralised, regionalised or federal states structures), variations in the replacement of previous connectivity to national and regional identities require further inspection. Hence, although research on bottom-up horizontal Europeanisation is no longer in its infancy, the impact of socialisation processes on multilayered collective identities in cross-border micro-spaces has deserved little attention in the literature. To this end, this contribution takes a sociological-individual view which places Europeanisation at the micro-level and where socialization processes play a prominent role. Drawing on a questionnaire and other qualitative data, this research answers the following questions: Does cross-border cooperation automatically lead to a sense of European identity? Is it possible to discern different categories of Europeanised citizens in cross-border micro-spaces? What are the implications for regional and national identities on the Portuguese and Spanish side of the border? In sum, it is our wish to contribute to the comprehension of socialisation processes on Europeanisation of identities, while bringing theoretical and empirical novelty to the literature on horizontal Europeanisation.