Technical report on how young Europeans engage with changes in products and traditions related to the European colonial cultural heritage

How do young European people engage with changes to products and traditions whose ethno-racial and colonial connotations have recently spurred heated debate across European societies? In addressing this question, we examined through focus groups the ways European young adults (N=104) with coloniser and colonised ancestry engaged with the blurring or removal of racial imagery from European food packaging (e.g., coffee, chocolate) and blackface practices. We did so in three European countries with a history of colonial expansion (i.e., the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy) and in one country without such history (i.e., Croatia). As they engaged with CCH changes, we found that some young European people reflected their societies’ reluctance to elaborate on the ethno-racial categories these cultural products and traditions evoke (e.g., the portrayed
African, colonised peoples, and the white Europeans as creators of these depictions). In doing so, they often unlinked colonialism from CCH products and traditions. Others contested this tendency by explicitly articulating these ethno-racial categories and their histories of interaction. As a result, they tended to link
colonialism to CCH products and traditions. In the face of accusations of racism against these CCH products and traditions, the former group tended to view the effects of these cultural artefacts as contingent on observers’ perceptions,
downplaying their historically grounded ethno-racial dimensions. By contrast, the latter group viewed these effects as rooted both in the histories of CCH products and traditions and in people’s ethno-racial ancestry. As young people shifted along this continuum, they exhibited in turn different modes of engagement with CCH changes such as opposing, deflective, supportive, and critical. Our results highlight that limiting CCH changes to the blurring or removal of racialised imagery risks diverting attention from colonialism’s enduring consequences, such as racial inequality within the continent. In contrast, recontextualising CCH by modifying these cultural products and traditions to highlight the linkage between colonialism and the present offers greater potential to foster anti-racist engagement among young Europeans. Through education, public debate, or critical repurposing, such recontextualisation may not only counter ethnonationalist nostalgia but also enable young Europeans to imagine inclusive futures by taking ownership of their societies’ pasts.