| Project of the Month - October 2010

ENRI-East – Interplay of European, National and Regional Identities

The ENRI-East Project – "Interplay of European, National and Regional Identities: Nations between States along the New Eastern Borders of the European Union" is an FP7-SSH collaborative research project, funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (2008-2011). This international research project is dedicated to the study of socio-ethnic identities in Eastern European countries. By and large, this is a pilot scientific effort: no study like that has been ever done before in terms of its geographical coverage, thematic scope as well as variety of research tools and methods.

Description of the Project

The key goal of the ENRI-East project is to develop an in-depth understanding of the ways in which modern European identities and regional cultures are formed and how these are inter-communicated in the Eastern part of the European continent. The study puts a focus on approximately ten ethnic groups representing “split nations” along the new eastern borders of the enlarged European Union and combines theories of identities and empirical “facts of life”. ENRI-East experts test and adjust existing theories of identity formation based on the outcomes of a series of specially designed quantitative and qualitative sociological surveys and systematic observations. Thus, ENRI-East is a study with equally strong theoretical, methodological and empirical components, which deploys methods and approaches from a variety of social sciences.


Main Research Themes

The ENRI-East research project is structured along four cross-cutting research themes that shall be explored as important theoretical issues:
  • Interplay of identities and cultures
  • Nations between the states
  • Self-organisation and representation of ethnic minorities along the East European borderland
  • Historical paths, collective memories, present status and expected dynamics of split nations in Eastern Europe

Main Research Tools

The project employs both theoretical and empirical research tools that shall deliver reliable comparative data for each of the four cross-cutting research themes. In short, the project tools are:
  • Critical review of literature on identities, verification and secondary analysis of existing statistical and sociological data sets
  • A series of sociological surveys in order to gain new knowledge on the main research themes of the project. This includes:
    • Large-scale multinational quantitative survey on values and identities (ENRI-VIS)
    • A chain of qualitative sociological surveys, including expert interviews and content analysis, as well as a pilot study on cultural identities and music, and a series of biographical interviews

Project Website

http://www.enri-east.net/


Participating Countries

Austria, Belarus, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, United Kingdom, Ukraine


Project Coordination Team

Institute of Advanced Studies, Austria

Prof. Hans-Georg Heinrich (Principle Investigator)
hans-georg.heinrich@univie.ac.at

Dr. Alexander Chvorostov (Project Coordinator)
alex.chv@ihs.ac.at

Dr. Natalia Waechter
waechter@ihs.ac.at

Mag. Pauline Oberthaler
oberthaler@ihs.ac.at

Mag. Johannes Wetzinger
wetzinger@ihs.ac.at

Documents