In November and December 2024, Loïc Azoulai and Jack Meakin, together with a group of EUI and external researchers, ran a seminar on European Law of the Everyday. The group endeavoured to explore the role of law or lack thereof in Ben Judah’s book ‘This is Europe: The Way We Live Now’ published in 2023. The book consists of a series of short stories and portraits about different forms of ‘ordinary’ lives in today’s Europe: from the dock-worker in Rotterdam to the Romanian lorry-driver, from the turbulent journey of an Ivorian migrant to the Afghan fruit-picker on a Greek island, from the queer person in Berlin to the elderly musician struggling with domestic violence in Tbilisi.
The seminar has reflected on how to approach lived lives in Europe and the role of law in constituting the everyday. It included questions about the concept of the everyday, the nature and limits of the representation of the everyday in Judah’s book, the contribution and limits of a hypothetical 'European law of the everyday', and the ethics of research on the everyday in today’s Europe.
This workshop is based on the collective work achieved during the seminar. It dares turn Judah’s book against itself and wonders: Is this Europe? Is this really the way we live now? Moreover, it will address the critical and ethical questions that emerge from different quarters in today’s Europe, sometimes as an anxious call, sometimes as an angry cry: is this the way we want to live in Europe now? These questions will be discussed in response to the collection of short papers produced in the context of the seminar. A selection of these papers will be presented during the day.
Päivi Neuvonen (Durham University), Paul Linden-Retek (Buffalo School of Law), and Ivana Isailovic (University of Amsterdam) will join the conversation and share their thoughts on European Law and the Everyday.
Everyone who has Europe as an object of study or subject of concern is warmly invited to attend and join the conversation.
Programme of the day (tbc)
10.00 – 11.15
Europe, Law, and the Everyday
Loïc Azoulai/Jack Meakin
Injustice, Individuation, and Social Risk Sharing in This is Europe and European Law of the Everyday
Marc Steiert
Baloga, Liepaja, Linhares da Beira, Meursault, Storkow, Evia…
11.30 – 13.00
This is (white) Europe: Race and European Law of the Everyday
Irina Muñoz Ibarra
Baloga, Storkow, Col de l’Echelle, Birançon, Evia, Avignon, Budapest, Berlin…
Berlin
Karla Žeravcic & Davide Tomaselli
Berlin…
14.30 – 15.45
People, or what EU law does not understand about tech
Mateus Correia de Carvalho
Avignon, Storkow, Baloga, Briançon, Budapest…
Where in the World is Europe?
Timo Zandra
Sabetta…
16.00 – 17.00
Careful Europe
Sarah Glaser
Castletownroche, Istanbul, Norrköping, Briançon, Baloga, Hatvan…
Concluding Round Table: The Everyday, European Law, and the Future of European Studies