Thematization and Collective Positioning in Everyday Political Talk

This piece outlines some of the findings of an exploratory research project into popular forms of identification in the contemporary European context and their implications for projects of transnational integration such as the European Union. Drawing on a series of group interviews conducted with taxi-drivers in Britain, Germany and the Czech Republic, it looks at how political problems are articulated in discussion, how speakers position themselves in relation to these problems, and how this differs according to the topics in question. It is suggested that these routinized discursive practices shape the way speakers make sense of the political world, and in turn the kinds of political association that make sense to them as citizens.