The Jungelian Knowledge in the Garden of Europe: “The Other” and their representation in the European Studies Program at Malmö University

Abstract: European Studies as a mainstream field needs evaluation of how its structured, and what ontological, epistemological, and methodological approaches it takes. Through a theoretical framework consolidated mainly by Spivak and Said with a post-colonial lens on the European Studies Program, where it uses positional superiority, Subject-Constitution and Object-Formation concepts, theorizing “The Other” using anthropological writings and psychoanalysis, and use destructive representation to investigate the positionality of “The Other” or its effective absence, this dissertation investigate and analyze four core courses of European Studies Program at Malmö University to address the knowledge about, and the representation of, “The Other” within the program’s curriculum. It concludes that because of its origin as a field of study and the dominant group that reproduces the knowledge about it, “The Other” is better measured through its effective absence, even if it has been always present. It further questions knowledge production about and from “The Jungle” and how a serious shift is possible; this shift does not start by recognizing the absence, but rather, as a first step, by the will to acknowledge it.