Aldea. E. (2014) Five minutes with Eva Aldea: “A ‘Fortress Europe’ accessible only to those within would be as much of a failure of the European project as dissolution of the Union”, LSE EUROPP Interview, 07 July.
Can philosophy offer practical solutions to some of the key issues faced by the European Union? In an interview with EUROPP’s editor Stuart Brown, Eva Aldea discusses the role of philosophy in framing debates around immigration within Europe, Deleuze’s distinction between ‘migrants’ and ‘nomads’, and the potential for the EU to change how we think about nation states and our citizenship.
The rise of parties such as UKIP and the Front National has pushed immigration to the forefront of the political agenda in many countries across Europe. Can philosophy provide practical solutions in the context of this debate?
I am acutely aware of the difficulty in turning grand philosophical ideas into practical solutions for society, here and now. Nevertheless, I believe that the European Union as a project does necessitate a rethinking of old ideas of citizenship and migration. Philosophy can at least provide some ideas about where to go with such a rethink.
However, philosophy on its own is not enough to change ingrained ways of thinking. Practical work in the political, economic and cultural spheres is necessary to implement the new ideas that philosophy suggests to us. This practical work has to, in turn, be undertaken both by those in power, whether in politics or in media, as well as each and every one of us. Voting is important (and there is perhaps too little debate on who did not vote in the recent European elections and why) but so is our behaviour in terms of consumption of media and how this shapes the portrayal of communities in the UK and across Europe.
Rosi Braidotti alerts us in her work to the lack of what she calls the “social imaginary” adequate to the new Europe we are already inhabiting. I think this lack is very much responsible for the rise of anti-immigration politics in Europe today. Remedying this lack is a task that requires the joint work of philosophy, politics and personal responsibility.
Relevant posts:
- Perkowski, N. (2014) “Strengthening EU border security won’t stop the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean“, LSE EUROPP, 01 July.
- Buruma, I. (2014) “The Trouble with Europe“, Project Syndicate, 15 May.
- Zaiceva, Anzelika, Zimmermann, Klaus F. (2012) “Returning Home at Times of Trouble? Return Migration of EU Enlargement Migrants during the Crisis“, IZA Discussion Paper, N.7111.