A Meta-View Psychology of Legal Categories

Abstract

Mindful of the multiple crises in Europe and the world, a meta-view interdisciplinary perspective considers how categories of Self and Other entrenched in laws influence the European identity, as part of a social psychology that creates ingroups and outgroups. The assertion is that this intersection of psychology and legal categorisation gives human beings either hierarchical or equal social value via status, identity, and rights, whether as European citizens, intra-EU migrants, or non-Europeans seeking asylum. Moving beyond these category distinctions to a cosmopolitan human-self-identity expands what it means to be European both from a legal and psychological perspective. In this process, new movements in Europe concerning its future can bring European institutions into dialogue with European citizens, migrants, and newcomers to the EU in efforts to co-create a post-national Europe.