New release: Town Twinning, Transnational Connections, and Trans-local Citizenship Practices in Europe. By Andreas Langenohl
30. April 2015
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2015
(Europe in a Global Context, 4)
Reference
The European Commission has defined town twinning as one of the main pillars on which a 'Europe for Citizens' can be achieved and European identity be fostered. Yet what does twinning entail for those engaged in it on a local level? How does transnationalism enter local settings?
Andreas Langenohl argues that the transnationalism of town twinning in Europe rests on practices of localization assembled around an ethics of exchange, encompassing codes of hospitality, notions of friendship, and reciprocity in giving and receiving. Based on ethnographic observations and interviews with twinning practitioners, the book argues that the kind of European integration achieved through town twinning resembles a model of European integration that establishes 'exchange' and 'market' as a generalized model of cooperation. (Publisher)
Andreas Langenohl is Professor of Sociology at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. Between 2007 and 2010, he was director of the research group “Idioms of Social Analysis” in the Center of Excellence “Cultural Foundations of Social Intgration”. This book is based on the research he conducted during his fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study Konstanz 2013.