Cosmopolitan empire

Abstract

The annual Eurovision Song Contest has provided a venue where participating nations from the former Soviet bloc, whose relation to Europeanness may be tenuous, strive to perform claims to belonging and partnership. Yet the increasing emphasis on ‘diversity’ in the representation of an expanding Europe has created difficulties for Central and Eastern European countries, which historically were positioned as ‘ethnic’, if not racialized vis-à-vis western European powers. Nevertheless, Central and Eastern European participants in the Contest have engaged with cosmopolitanism as the key term through which Europe has come to define itself. Through a close, historically contextualized analysis of two songs, the article argues that Central and Eastern European participants in the Contest have developed alternative discourses of cosmopolitanism that furnish a corrective to the increasingly reductive equation of the concept with cultural diversity.

‘All Kinds of Everything’? Queer Visibility in Online and Offline Eurovision Fandom

“…The contest powerfully gives voice and representation to individuals of different socio-cultural backgrounds, particularly those who identify as LGBT, on an international platform. The ESC champions gender and sexuality diversity which demonstrates a desire to be seen as European, which evokes feelings of 'Europeanness' (Binnie and Klesse, 2011;Sieg, 2013). The contest nevertheless involves itself with these political acts, as it is a way of targeting millions of viewers internationally to positively promote social and cultural differences and diversity.…”