Europe in Love: Binational Couples and Cosmopolitan Society
Lunch seminar (online on Google Meet)
JUAN DIEZ MEDRANO, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Europe in Love: Binational Couples and Cosmopolitan Society
In Europe, In Love, Juan Díez Medrano places the increase in binational couples formed by Europeans at the center of societal transformations taking place in Europe because of European integration. These slow-moving transformations contribute to the emergence of a cosmopolitan society. In each of the book’s chapters, the author explores the lives of a sample of binational couples living in seven different cities of four different countries. It focuses on the impact they have on the careers of the foreign partners to these marriages, on sociability, and on civic involvement. Then, it moves on to show how being part of a binational couple also affects their consumption of music, film, and books and their feelings of belonging to different, nested political communities. The book concludes that being in a binational couple contributes to growing cosmopolitanism, both among the middle classes and the working classes.