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Despite European integration's social content and impact, the study of this process remains dominated by research objects centred upon European Union, national and local institutions together with their organisational partners. Such analyses have usefully identified the contours of a" European space of public action" which now structures the resources and behaviour of institutional actors (Mullcr, 1995). However, apart from questionnaire-based analysis of often dubious scientific quality, little energy has been devoted to the impact of European integration upon social ties within or across the member states. Worse still, currently available theoretical foundations for such study remain decidedly shaky and dominated by nation-state thinking. In short, approaches which target an" interest in European-level politics" continue to overshadow more fundamental questions about the state of contemporary identities in European societies (Belot & Smith, 1998). This chapter is a by-product of a research project which runs counter to dominant perspectives on European integration for reasons which are as much methodological as empirical. Idealistic perspectives which see Europe as a society in the making (Ferry, 1992; Habermas, 1992) are thus rejected along with quests for precursors of a" European identity". Instead I am interested in developing and testing the sociological and anthropological hypothesis that the continent of Europe is a profoundly" fragmented space"(Poche, 1996). Within this space, territorial belonging is nevertheless constantly being recomposed around the concrete objects of what the