Leiden University Student Repository

Wouw, Chayenne Tracy van de (2019)

A New Perspective on the Problematics of a “European” Identity: United by Active Ageing or Ageism?

Bachelor thesis | International Studies (BA)

In face of various political and economic challenges, the EU has been making efforts to glue its member states together through the concept of a “European culture.” This research seeks to answer how the position of elderly citizens in the aspiration of fostering “Europeanness” through the The European Year represents the larger problematics of creating a “European” identity? In this way, another aspect of the complicated matter of the creation of “one united European people” is to be provided by including how the attempts of creating unity can be at the expense of excluding certain persons and even whole demographic groups who do not fit into the specific rhetoric of unity. The innovativeness of this research lies in the fact that it will focus on elderly EU citizens. So far, this demographic group has namely been insufficiently recognised in the context of “European” identity creation.

European identity

Active ageing

Ageism

Europeanness

European Union

Exclusion

European Year

Author

Wouw, Chayenne Tracy van de

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Europe

Supervisors

Weyenberg, A.L.B. van

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en