Bridging divides: the Channel Tunnel and English legal identity in the new Europe

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Edition Details

Creator or Attribution (Responsibility): Eve Darian-Smith
Biografical Information: Eve Darian-Smith is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and coeditor, with Peter Fitzpatrick, of Laws of the Postcolonial (1998). She trained in anthropology at Harvard and the University of Chicago, and has also practiced law in Melbourne, Australia.
Language: English
Jurisdiction(s): California
Publication Information: Berkeley : University of California Press, ©1999
Material: Internet resource
Type: Book, Internet Resource
Permalink: https://books.lawi.org.uk/bridging-divides-the-channel-tunnel-and-english-legal-identity-in-the-new-europe/ (Stable identifier)

Short Description

XVII, 256 pages : ILlustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Purpose and Intended Audience

Useful for students learning an area of law, Bridging divides: the Channel Tunnel and English legal identity in the new Europe is also useful for lawyers seeking to apply the law to issues arising in practice.

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Bibliographic information

Responsable Person: Eve Darian-Smith.
Publication Date: 1999
Copyright Date: 1999
Location: Berkeley, CA
Country/State: California
Number of Editions: 5 editions
First edition Date: 1999
Last edition Date: 1999
Languages: British English
Library of Congress Code: KD640
Dewey Code: 340.115
ISBN: 0520216105 9780520216105 0520216113 9780520216112
OCLC: 40043667

Publisher Description:

In a study that is original and timely, Eve Darian-Smith uses the Channel Tunnel between England and France to explore the shifting geographies of nationalism, postcolonialism, and legal autonomy in the formation of the European Union. Conducting ethnographic research in Kent, the county at the English mouth of the Tunnel, she looks at regional differences in feelings about Europe and at the vocabulary used in discussing the Tunnel. Visual representations–political cartoons, photographs, etchings–regarding the Tunnel are also examined.
Two hundred years after Napoleon planned to invade England VIa a tunnel, the completion in 1994 of a fast rail link between Great Britain and the European mainland symbolizes the disintegration of conventional state borders. While the Tunnel precariously affirms the ideal of a united Europe, it also brings to the fore questions of boundaries between the first and third worlds, colonizers and colonized, and the “East” and the “West.” Bridging Divides is about much more than an engineering feat. By exploring historical narratives, tunnel stories, and legal myths, Darian-Smith’s study shows the interconnections between people’s memories of the past and current history.

Main Contents

1. Landscape and Law in the English Imagination
2. Kent: Garden of England and Gateway to Europe
3. Napoleon’s Long Shadow, 1802-1985: The Conflation of Territory, Identity, and Nationalism
4. Penetrating Britannia, 1986-1994: The Continuing Significance of Sovereignty
5. “The Assassination of Kent”: Local Politics, Environmental Concerns, and Rethinking the Centrality of British Law
6. Rabies Rides the Fast Train: Transnational Interactions in Postcolonial Times
7. Locating a Reinvigorated Kentish Identity: New Connections, New Divisions
Conclusion: A Shifting Perspective on Europe
Appendix 1. Key Dates in the History of the Channel Tunnel Project.

Summary Note

A study that uses the Channel Tunnel between England and France to explore the shifting geographies of nationalism, postcolonialism, and legal autonomy in the formation of the European Union. It examines visual representations – political cartoons, photographs, etchings – regarding the Tunnel.

Bridging divides: the Channel Tunnel and English legal identity in the new Europe

Bridging divides: the Channel Tunnel and English legal identity in the new Europe