Member

Gabrielle Bernoville studies how heritage is being reclaimed within the Europeanisation paths of candidate and associated countries in the Western Balkans and the South Caucasus. She is interested in how public, cultural and civil society actors in these countries mobilise, adapt or divert the European heritage framework to position themselves within Europe, and in what these appropriations do to European territory itself: its boundaries, its margins, its narratives. She thus approaches enlargement as a negotiated redefinition of European space rather than as a diffusion of norms. A graduate of the College of Europe, she spent more than four years at the European Commission working on heritage schemes (European Heritage Label, European Heritage Days), which informs a reflexive approach to the policies she analyses. She is currently speechwriter to the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food.

Heritage, Memory and European Enlargement in the South Caucasus: EU Heritage Policies as Instruments of Territorial, Identity-Based and Geopolitical Recomposition ( draft title)
Supervised by Dr Gabor Sonkoly

At the crossroads of critical international relations, heritage studies and the political sociology of culture, this project analyses the place of heritage (tangible, intangible, religious, memorial) in European neighbourhood, pre-accession and enlargement strategies. It starts from the observation that the literature has mostly looked at the projection of states and institutions, and less at the local reception of these policies and their territorial effects. It puts forward the hypothesis of a “symbolic territorialisation” of European space through culture, which would spread implicit norms about legitimate forms of memory, heritage and civil society. It also examines how local cultural actors in Serbia and Georgia reinterpret, negotiate or contest these schemes, and what role affect plays in adherence to or resistance against geopolitical narratives. The inquiry is qualitative and multi-sited: semi-structured interviews, participant observation, documentary and discourse analysis. It draws on the author’s position within the European institutions, used as a means of access to the field and subjected to critical reflection.

• 2026-2030 · PhD, EHESS, doctoral programme “Territories, Migrations, Development” [to confirm: ongoing / enrolment in progress]
• 2023-2024 · Postgraduate degree in International Relations, European Academy of Diplomacy (Academy of Young Diplomats)
• 2019-2020 · Master’s in European Studies, College of Europe, Natolin campus. Graduated with honours; master’s thesis: grade “Excellent”
• 2018-2020 · Master’s in European Studies (European civilisation), Sciences Po Toulouse
• 2015-2018 · Sciences Po Toulouse degree in International Relations and Political Science (bachelor’s level)

• 2026-present · Speechwriter to the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, European Commission, Brussels
• 2021-2026 · Policy Officer, Creative Europe, European Commission: heritage and performing arts policies, European Heritage Label, European Heritage Days, strategic notes and high-profile events (300+ participants)
• 2025-present · Writer, Les Bonnes Feuilles, Paris
• 2021 · Cultural Officer, French Embassy in Slovakia, Bratislava
• 2020-2021 · Independent Research Fellow, Institute of European Democrats
• 2020-2021 · Blue Book Trainee, DG EAC (cultural policy), European Commission
• 2019-2021 · Researcher, culture Solutions
• 2017-2021 · Director of the Jean Monnet Network, European Horizons (network of 1,200 members, CERV and Jean Monnet funding)
• 2018 · Press Relations Assistant, Atout France, London
• 2017 · Executive Assistant, Alliance Française de Chiclayo, Peru