The significance of collective identities has been widely questioned in this age of individualism. However, the difficulty in sustaining collective identities does not mean that a sense of collective belonging has stopped being important. One of the bases on which collective identity may be sustained is in the belonging to a certain territory, expressed locally or regionally, that may contribute to a feeling of sameness. This article reports on a European research project which studied the impact of restructuring on collective identities in six European (former or actual) industrial regions in Spain, France, Germany, Poland, Turkey and the UK, and analysed more than a hundred biographical interviews in the search for narratives of contemporary identity. The findings suggest collective identities take shape and strength through a complex social process to create a sense of belonging and the articulation of the community us.