The Identity Papers  is one part of a PhD research project, with a focus on the changing landscape of Europe and the stresses that these changes are placing on the European Union.

The research is the work of Michael Shirrefs, based at La Trobe University in Australia. The project is also examining the role of long-form journalism in the recording and telling of contemporary histories. The PhD straddles two disciplines—History and Media/Journalism—which is significant, because the underlying question concerns the relationship between these two realms.

Michael Shirrefs has a background in radio that extends over more than 35 years, principally working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Over the past few decades, his work has been largely making long-form documentaries for radio.

The Identity Papers  brings together a range of radio documentaries, articles and extended interviews by Michael Shirrefs, built up over a decade, that have focused on Europe, trying to illustrate aspects of European uncertainty.

No matter how wide-ranging this work is, it is the product of an outsider. The choices are arbitrary to a certain extent, but they all have a cumulative connection to each other. To use the words of European historian Richard Vinen:

My view is shaped by those particular fragments of history that have intersected my own life.

Richard Vinen,  A History in Fragments: Europe in the twentieth  Century