WP2 - Perceptions, Emotions and Life Experiences
Objectives
This Work Package aims to deepen the understanding of the complexities surrounding the mutual perceptions of Eastern and Western Europe. It will do so by analyzing the life narratives of women—particularly women artists—across different generations, countries, and ethnicities, who have been underrepresented in scholarly research. Focusing on autobiographies, memoirs, and other personal narratives that reflect on the collapse of communism and its ramifications, we will explore how gender, beliefs, values, and cultural heritage shape perceptions of 'self' and 'other,' both within individual nations and across Europe as a whole.
Additionally, we will investigate how these perceptions are tied to emotions such as self-esteem, belonging, deprivation, and feelings of inferiority, and how they influence responses to the European project.
Finally, we seek to explore the significance of narrating life experiences as a means of coping with crises, reclaiming one's 'self' in relation to the 'other,' and reaching out to a broader audience in order to correct or challenge stereotypical perceptions of the 'other' part of Europe. In collaboration with artists, we ultimately aim to develop new, creative forms and practices for using life narratives in education and cultural diplomacy, raising (embodied) awareness of one’s own perceptions and fostering dialogue and exchange.
Specific goals:
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Sub-project 1 (Germany):- Focuses on the life narratives of women from Germany, a nation historically divided between East and West.
- Analyzes literary and graphical life narratives to explore how the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 is narrated.
- Investigates the challenges of dialogue between East and West Germans post-reunification.
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Sub-project 2 (Migration from Eastern Europe to the Netherlands):
- Studies women writers who migrated from Romania and former Yugoslavia to the Netherlands.
- Examines their role as cultural mediators by sharing life experiences from the Eastern bloc with a Western European audience.
- Analyzes their connection to the cultural-historical past of their former and new nations, and to Europe as a whole.
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Sub-project 3 (Roma-women's narratives):
- Focuses on life narratives of Roma women, a diasporic minority across Europe.
- Investigates how these women perceive the categories of East and West within Europe and their sense of belonging.
- Through small-scale theatrical workshops, explores ways to represent their often-overlooked cultural heritage and integrate their stories into the broader European narrative.
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Sub-project 4 (Ukraine's Stories of Resilience)
- Focuses on narratives of resilience in Ukrainian life writing (including chronicles by writers and intellectuals) and dance productions.
- Explores the concept of resilience in the context of a ‘national imaginary’ and the development of a new collective identity based on 'Europeanness'.
- Analyzes Ukraine’s sense of ‘Europeanness’ within the framework of the East-West divide.
