A question worth asking in the context of the current European Union debate surrounding the constitutional convention is whether, given contemporary processes of rapid cultural and ethnic hybridisation, the perennial values supposed to define the "Europeanness" of life on the old continent as well as uniting Europeans into a common project, make any sense.
Taking this as their departure point, the authors of People Flow are right to invite fresh thinking on the kind of Europe we want to live in. Europe is now home to millions of people from non-European backgrounds, many religious and cultural dispositions, and networks of attachment based on diaspora connections and cultural influences from around the world.
Much of Europe has become multi-ethnic and multicultural in ways that are no longer reducible to its "indigenous" ethno-cultural traditions. Europe is a site of longings rooted in myths of origin and tradition – regional, national and European – as well as a site of transnational and trans-European identities and attachments.
