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Sustainability is a key goal in much contemporary social and political decision-making, from EU climate policy to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. But the term has many different meanings and uses. In this episode of the EuroStorie Podcast, legal anthropologist and sustainability specialist Professor Reetta Toivanen shares her insights on the concept of cultural sustainability, how it intersects with environmental protection and human rights, and how anthropologists approach the study of Europe.

The development and distribution of several effective vaccinations for Covid-19 means managing and living with the virus might finally be a tangible possibility. But the politics of ‘vaccine nationalism’ means distribution of the vaccine around the world has been highly uneven, while in Europe and other countries where they are widely available, there are many who worry about the safety, efficacy and accessibility of vaccinations. In this episode, we talk to Professor Pamela Slotte about her research on vaccine hesitancy and personal convictions, and connect the discussion to broader themes of public health, trust, and human rights in Europe.

What can architecture teach us about contemporary debates about national identity, Europe, and empire? Is early Roman architecture part of the legacy of Europe’s ‘common heritage’ as much as Roman law and politics? What makes a building look ‘Roman’, ‘German’, ‘Finnish’ or ‘European’? Juhana Heikonen will help us understand all these questions and more, drawing on his expertise as an architect and collaborator with the Law, Governance and Space project hosted at the University of Helsinki.

The longest-running international televised event in the world, the Eurovision Song Contest is famous for dramatic key changes and fiercely competitive bloc-voting. But what does it have to do with European cooperation and identity? How do stories of Europe and national identity play out on the musical stage? How can a contest that claims to be ‘non-political’ also claim to be part of the intrinsically political narrative of common European identity? And what is Australia doing in a competition for Europeans? This episode explores the history and politics of the ESC since it started in 1956, unpacking its dual roles in perpetuating narratives of Europe’s common heritage and in nation-branding, with plenty of the glitz, glamour and ridiculous costume changes of the contest along the way.

In this episode, Ali Ali talks to us about his research on the themes of belonging, community and solidarity in the lives of exiles and migrants who identify as queer or sexually non-normative. Critiquing dominant narratives of Europe as a place of security, freedom and justice, Ali explains what protracted processing periods and legal limbos, complicated state bureaucracies, and societal assumptions about the ‘authenticity’ or ‘deservingness’ of queer asylum claims do to people’s senses of safety, community, and self. He also shows us how intersections between the experiences of sexually non-normative migrants and other migrant experiences can shed light on how we understand national and regional identities, and the power politics that emphasise or hide certain parts of our selves.

Is Differentiated Integration the Answer to Euroscepticism? Differentiated integration is an important part of understanding how an ever-larger European Union copes (or fails to cope) with the diversity of interests and resources among its 27 Member States. But the idea that not all states are able or want to integrate at the same pace or to the same degree is also one of the core tensions underpinning crises such as Brexit, Eurozone inequality, and rising nationalism and Euroscepticism. In the first episode of the EuroStorie Podcast Season 2, we talk to Dr Benjamin Leruth from the University of Groningen about how differentiated integration works, why some countries prefer it, and what it can tell us about Euroscepticism and the future of the EU.

The Finnish labor market is predominantly white and discrimination based on someone's ethnicity or skin color is not a new phenomenon. Having studied Russian-speaking migrants in Helsinki and Ukrainians in Warsaw, researcher Daria Krivonos talks with us about why and how migrants strive for whiteness in their new host country. Racialization and institutional racism are visible not only in the labor market but also in the conceptualizations of Europeanness and the division between East and West. 

There seem to be as many definitions of populism as there are researchers of it. As a concept it is widely used in the current European politics and therefore it deserves a thorough, even philosophical consideration of it. Helping us with that task is PhD student Tuukka Brunila from EuroStorie. How does populism relate to the de-politicization of certain questions? We have all heard of right-wing populism, but is there something called left-wing populism as well? If everything is political, how can we distinguish good policies from bad ones?

What if we for a change did not focus on Europe as the center of attention? What comes after Europe, what kinds of other geographical powers affect global flows of movement? Researcher Samuli Schielke’s work in Egypt brings new perspectives to thinking about Europe. We discuss Eurocentrism, people’s hopes and dreams of a better life and the limits of economic growth and natural resources.

In this episode, scholar Timo Miettinen offers some perspectives for understanding the balancing between individual liberties versus restrictions during the global pandemic. Going into discussions of liberalism and universalism, we talk about state intervention, trust towards political leaders and the juxtaposition between “the obedient North” and the “irresponsible South” in Europe.

In the second episode, we discuss migration, refugee knowledge and European border control with Dr. Magdalena Kmak, the team leader of subproject 3 in EuroStorie. How do we label and categorize refugees and migrants? Who is welcome to Europe and who is excluded, and on what basis? How could we best handle exceptional situations like the COVID-19 pandemic and protect all humans, including those forced to leave their home countries?

In the very first episode of the EuroStorie Podcast, we, together with Dr. Kaius Tuori, already tackle some big current questions: How can the previous European crises help us navigate the most recent one, the COVID-19 crisis? What kind of effects do the nationalism movements of today have on European integration? And, how has the relationship between Europe and the US evolved in the recent decades and what could we learn from America?