The Other European: Exploring the Boundaries of the (im)possible Euro

Is it at all possible to think of Europe as a philosophical and political space that neither conceives itself as the space of the universal or as universalisable, nor as a particularistic community? This PhD proposal dives into the all-too-well-known question of the European community through a renewed approach: the 'Other European', that is, by inquiring into who I consider as being different from me, yet belonging to the same space, enabling both the recognition of difference and the inclusion of that difference within a single, collective project. This PhD proposal, which Professor Simon Glendinning has agreed to supervise, moves away from the question of European identity and instead focuses on alterity: it explores how different philosophical understandings of who the Other European is redefine the boundaries of the European community, especially as it is lived in its margins. We propose to explore three co-dependent problematisations. First, the dissertation will look at the modern understandings of the Other European and its political consequences on the boundaries of the European community that it conceptualises. Second, the dissertation explores the alternative incarnations of the Other European, notably through a social (beyond-)phenomenological outlook, and the political redefinition that it implies for political belonging and European citizenship. Finally, the dissertation, although it is primarily a philosophicopolitical inquiry, will study the echoes of such concepts amongst contemporary actors, more specifically delivery riders in Europe, situated at the margins of that European community and the very concepts of belonging and citizenship that are attached to it.
Europe's contours and identity is a question haunting philosophical and political scholarship onEurope (Strath, 2002; Delanty, 2004; Fligstein, 2008; Checkel, 2009). In this scholarship, Europe is held within an impossible deadlock between methodological nationalism and particularism, inquiring into Europe using the tools of the state, and cosmopolitical resources, conceptualising Europe as a particular space which has yet to be universalised. This deadlock nourishes in turn profound questions about the very ground, and thus viability, of the European project: if one cannot define the philosophico-political object that is Europe, how can one imagine its future? Interrogating the ontological groundings of the European community (who is considered as forming part of the European community?) and its political consequences (how do the criteria of recognition impact the very processes and products of that community?), enables us to move away from a scholarship tempted to define Europe in terms of its essential identity, and instead helps us create a picture of a Europe, which, through alterity, is concretely lived, experienced, but also transgressed by bodies. This inquiry will be conducted by reconstructing and politicising the modern understandings of the Other European and exploring the alternative incarnations of the Other European which emerged from this Modernity, and finally studying how these conceptualisations resonate amongst contemporary actors, choosing the case of delivery riders in Europe, situated at the margins of the European community.


Key words: Europe, alterity, identity, community, universalism, particularism