From Europe to Europeans and beyond. Meanings of Europe through people’s biographical ex-periences

Based on narrative interviews collected in seven EU Member States, the paper shows processes of Europeanization in everyday life and everyday practices emanating for those who in one way or other are taking up the opportunities offered by an integrated Europe. Against the observation of the phase of erosion of loyalties the institutional European Union is undergoing, the bottom up study points to a “European Collective Mental Space of Reference” [Schütze 2011] as created in cross-border and cross-cultural communication and cooperation. The paper delineates this collective phenomenon of mental space as defined through structures of opportunity for mobility and encountering diversity of cultures and ways of life, through frames of reference orienting and affecting processes of learning and mutual understanding across borders and boundaries, through occasions for comparison between differences, and new collective identification and changing feelings of belonging. The last chapter deals with unequal risks and chances for encountering the European mental space and beyond.