Drawing on affinities between Eurozine's publishing activities and the European Cultural Foundation's Connected Action for the Commons programme, we launch a new focal point exploring the prospects for a commons where cultural and social activists meet with a broader public to create new ways of living together.
Accompanying the Eurozine conference 2013 in Oslo, entitled "Making a difference: Opinion, debate and activism in the public sphere", this focal point explores some of the aspects of building -- making -- a space for public exchange of opinions and worldviews. A place where anyone can make a difference.
Harbour cities as places of movement, immigration and emigration, as places of inclusion and exclusion, develop distinct modes of being that not only reflect different cultural traditions and political and social self-conceptions, but also contain economic potential and communicate how they see themselves as part of the larger structure that is "Europe".
In recent years, the possibility of a "grand narrative" that includes both East and West in a common European story has been discussed intensely. In a new Focal Point, Eurozine seeks to broaden the question beyond the East-West historical divide. How are contested interpretations of historical and recent events made active in the present, both uniting and dividing European societies?
Borders define. Conventionally, they seem demarcated, set. But the political situations in nation states and regional unions often bring the jurisdiction of borders into question. There are states determined to acquire more land. And those pushing to restrict legal entry. Forced migration, caused by environmental crises, war and poverty, has become a particularly keen topic for inhospitable hosts, focusing on both exclusion and expansionist solutions. An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Graz calls this phenomenon ‘Elastic Borders’.
Forty years on, the differences between the 1968 uprisings in western and eastern Europe move into ever sharper focus. "In retrospect, the great event of '68 in Europe was not Paris, but Prague. But we were unable to see this at the time."