Struggle and banality of belonging to Europe. Cultural Europeanization from the perspective of the Central and East European citizens.

The European Union (EU) has developed cultural policy initiatives that seek to promote cultural Europeanization with the purpose of constructing European identity narratives and facilitating citizens' sense of belonging to Europe and the EU. The article focuses on the citizens' perspective to cultural Europeanization through ethnographic research on one central action in the EU cultural policy, European Heritage Label (EHL). We analyse the interviews conducted in selected EHL sites with Central and East European (CEE) citizens who were visiting the sites as well as with cultural heritage practitioners working at three EHL sites located in CEE countries.

Constructing social Europe through European cultural heritage.

The political and economic crises of the recent decades as well as the new changes brought on by globalization and digitalization have contributed to exacerbate social inequalities and injustice and revealed different social realities in Europe. The EU increasingly deals with social issues in its cultural and heritage policy. In this article, we explore the construction of this social dimension and advance the concept of 'social Europe' by exploring its cultural aspect based on our analysis of a recent EU heritage action, the European Heritage Label.