This is (White) Europe: Race and European Law of the Everyday

Drawing on insights from critical race theory, this article analyses the subtextual parameters of race in Ben Judah’s This is Europe: The Way We Live Now . I argue that the book effectively marginalises the racialised dimensions of everyday life. By essentialising non-European ‘Others’ and eclipsing the perspectives of Black Europeans and Europeans of colour, the narrative in This is Europe perpetuates a notion of whiteness as the default European identity. This critique contributes to the symposium by highlighting that a nuanced engagement with race is fundamental for conceptualising the ‘everyday’ in European law. First, it affirms race and anti-racism as urgent critiques in a discussion on European law of the everyday; second, it calls for recognition of everyday resistance by racialised people in Europe who are countering structural discrimination and racialised violence and neglect, and asserting their own history and identity as Europeans.