Producing Transcultural Identity through Crime Narratives: Recommendations and Comparative Overview

This report presents the results of a range of studies into popular European crime narratives and the ways that they may produce or represent transcultural identities across the continent. The empirical data holds no clear evidence that a shared European identity may be construed through the way that crime narratives are produced and distributed. However, data and viewpoints highlighted in the report suggest that there are a range of different transcultural identities in Europe, negotiated, presented and rearticulated through stories of crime and investigation. Such identity constructions hold special locative affinities as they are tied to specific territorial regions, and these transcultural sharepoints present strong branding models for new, powerful and established players in the industry.

On the one hand, the report stresses that a shared European culture through popular culture, such as crime narratives, may be significantly difficult to frame and build. On the other hand, the same research also emphasizes that there are ways to build a business model on locative, regional identities co-created over decades and even centuries. From a European perspective, this holds some promise, as the notion of Europe claims a century-long identity formation, but history is not enough in itself; and the crime genre is, at the same time, also a noteworthy way to disclose some of the drawbacks and conflicts that such a banal, yet vivid shared identity may result in and come across.