European Elsewheres: Global Sociologies of Space and Europe

In this chapter, we develop a relational theoretical matrix supported by exemplary cases of unequal and forgotten Europes whose global spatiality we capture by the term “European elsewheres”. In doing so, we offer a sociological magnifying glass making the current spatial implications of Europe’s long-standing colonial entanglements both visible and legible. What the prevalent political and societal struggles are differ from context to context. Yet, from the border shifts that Brexit triggered in an interconnected Caribbean (Anguilla) through the promise of a sovereign future in the Pacific (New Caledonia) and to life-threatening migration attempts to the EU’s latest outermost region in the Indian Ocean (Mayotte) – all “European elsewheres” share the coloniality of memory – a structural lack of geopolitical, social scientific and media visibility. The three cases illustrate how sociologies of space and Europe can be bridged in such a way that Europe is both theorized and empirically addressed as a globally and historically entangled space. We accordingly view European space as historically constructed and globally co-constituted by the power relations maintained and contested in and between continental Europe and “European elsewheres”.