Europeanisation and Malta : spatialising national identity

Abstract

In the context of expanding and deepening Europeanisation, this project examines the process of negotiating national and supranational identities among the University of Malta students. An online quantitative survey and qualitative interviews are used to measure students' sense of identity, and their attachment to Europe and to Malta. Statistical analysis of the quantitative data, and discourse analysis of the qualitative data, reveals that: 1. there is no significant difference between respondents' attachment to Malta and to Europe, though there is a significant positive correlation between the two; 2. while nation-states are intrinsically spatial, family and friends are more important than spatiality in the formation of national identity; and 3. a place-identity hierarchy is created in which respondents' national attachment was ranked above their local attachment, which was ranked above their supranational attachment. The concluding chapter argues for more geographical research to be conducted in this field, and provides directions for such research.