The Disjunction Phenomenon in the European Union.

1. The DisjunctionPhenomenon in the European Union. Christiane Villain-Gandossi & Jan Berting

2. The Disjunction Phenomenon A collective representationbecomes increasinglydetachedfrom the societal reality itpretends to reflect. Moreover, thisgrowing distance between the collective representation and social reality is (purposefully?) ignored in order to avoid the disturbance of a political consensus.

3. The concept of collective representation. • Different groups and classes withinoursocieties have in several respects different ‘images’, different collective representations of the society they live in. • What do wemeanwhenwe use this concept of collective representation?

4. Colllective representations Collective representations are shared mental images, whichpersons and collective entities have about the social and natural world they live in, but also about social worldswithwhichthey do not have an immediateexperience. Collective representations are mental maps, sociallydeveloped and shared types of knowledge.

5. Collective representations are functional. • Collective representations are very functional for a social unit because they help the persons concerned to orient themselves in an otherwise too complex world. • They give indications about who we are and who are the Others. They offer a grip on a world that otherwise would not be understandable. But they are also an important source of confusions.

6. Collective identity. • Collective identities are stronglytied to the concept of collective representations. • Collective identities are the meanswhereby people definethemselves and othersbyusingdifferent markers, such as cultural features. Theyimply an awareness for certain differencesbetweenthem and thosethat do not belong to their ‘community’(An exemple: Our national identities).

7. Open en closed Collective Identities Most collective identities are relatively open, thusallowing real dialogues withother groups. Wecanalso observe closedcollectivitiesthat have as such a fundamentalistcharacter. The latter are often a source of manyproblems in (inter)national relations.

8. The Disjunction Phenomenon of the European Union. • The disjunction phenomenon of the EU -The political, economic and social representation of the society that has lost its “roots” in real life.

9. Multicultural societies. All Europeansocieties are multicultural in the sensethatthey comprise populations that are in several respects ratherheterogeneous.

10. Multicultural society: a politicallyconfused concept • This concept of the multicultural society harbours a lot of political confusion becauseitisusedboth as an individualisticrepresentation of society and as a collectivisticrepresentation. • The collectivisticrepresentationis the source of many social tensions.

11. The collectivistmulticulturalsociety as an important source of tensions and conflicts. Wewillseethat the collectivistmulticulturalrepresentationimprisons large parts of the population in a rigidstrait-jacket thatis an important impediment for the ongoingmodernization of society and a source of many tensions and conflicts.

12. The culture, community and collective identity of the Others. • Thesethree concepts, used in politicaldiscourses about minorities, are mostlyused in a holistic and deterministicway. • An important consequence of thisway of speakingisthatthosepersons, who are considered to belong to theseminorities, lose in thisviewalmostcompletelytheirindividualidentity. Theybecomeprisoners of thispoliticalview. The Diabolical Triangle isborn.

13. The Diabolic Triangle

14. Culture, community and collective identity.

15. Different degrees of inclusion of minorities in a modern society.

16. How to escape from the diabolic triangle? • Task one: disclosesystematically the fatal disjunctionbetween the collectivistic concepts of culture, community and collective identity and the social and cultural reality to whichtheyrefer. • Tasktwo: The construction of a new collective representation of society thatavoids the critizised concepts, being a new challenge for ourEuropean future.

17. The role of the social sciences and the mass media • The social and the human sciences have as an important taskbeforethem to shrug off theirconformistapproach in the field of minoritystudies. • The mass media shoulddelivercritical analyses of the information theydistribute about minorities and immigrants.

18. A comparative analysis of the collective representations of minorities in differentEuropeancountries. • A systematicanalysis of collective representations in political life in relation withminoritiesdiscloses the oftenwide gap between collective representations and the social realities to whichtheyrefer.

19. What about the situation in the countries that are included in REDUPRE? • Also in these countries the commonheritage of collective representations and of collective identitieslooms large. • As elsewhere, each state, country and regionisloadedwithitsown collective representations, being the result of theirownhistoricalpast. • As elsewhere, the main challenge is to escape fromcollectivisticheritages.

20. Europe’s future, a challenge. • The further development of the European Union necessitates the systematic analysis of the collective representations that may facilitate, slow down and even block this common enterprise. • The present economic crisis shows clearly that this important task is severely neglected by the political class.