Returning to Europe: Youth, education and the 'new' Bulgaria of the European Union

This work studies national and European identity building from within three do- mains of practice unfolding between 2009 and 2014 within and beyond the territory of post-socialist new European Union (EU) member-state, Bulgaria. It examines the introduction of European dimension in national curriculum in civic education through analyzing discursive patterns in EU policy documents, national government narratives, including official education documents and history textbook content. It presents an analysis of public high school classes in History and World and Personality; and then follows young adults in two additional domains: the private "traditional" folklore initiatives and the pop-folk music industry. I ask how is a group of pubic school students taught to frame their understanding of Bulgariannness and Europeanness; what, if any, is the overlap between these two identifications and what, if any, are the practices they were engaging in to act upon and/or subvert these identifications. I ask if nationhood being reproduced in new ways. Is European identity being produced and, if so, how? Who participates in this process? How do the practices and ideologies relating to being/doing Bulgarian intersect with being European and being part of the EU? How are Bulgarianness and Europeanness made significant in different youth practices? As a result, this work contributes to anthropological and cognate social science scholarship on European integration, Europeanization, post- socialist transformation, public and educational policy, discourse analysis, theories and practices of nationhood.