Francophone Belgium Research Articles

Two worlds, one nation? Comparing the political spaces of Flanders and Francophone Belgium

Abstract The transformation of the Belgian party system has unfolded asymmetrically: while conservative and far-right parties have thrived in Flanders, the populist right vote has not (yet) been mobilized in Francophone Belgium. Focusing on the demand side of electoral politics, this article explores whether these disparities on the supply side mirror distinct political dimensions and cleavages in both regions. By using an innovative methodology of (class-specific) multiple correspondence analysis, we find that the Flemish and the Francophone political space are largely alike – both in terms of the composition of their political dimensions as in their cleavage structure. However, we also find that Francophones adhere to a distinctive welfare consensus, which prevents working-class embourgeoisement and likely moderates the electoral fortunes of the far right. Overall, our results challenge the common stereotypes of a ‘conservative Flanders’ and a ‘progressive Wallonia’.

Knowledge of female genital cutting among health and social care professionals in Francophone Belgium: A cross-sectional survey.

The provision of optimal, equitable and gender-sensitive health-care to women and girls with FGM/C is challenging. Research indicates that health-professionals in receiving countries lack knowledge, confidence and competence in managing FGM/C. In order to develop policies that are suitable to the wide heterogeneity of women from FGM/C practising groups, it is paramount to identify what appropriate care might consist of and what are the knowledge gaps of health and social-care providers. The study-objective was to gain an understanding of the knowledge and practices of professionals working in the area of health in Francophone Belgium where no previous KAP has been done. An anonymous questionnaire with 24 questions was developed targeting healthcare and social-care professionals. The questionnaire was distributed between 6 May and 30 August 2021 via professional organisations for midwifery, social work, GPs, infectious disease specialists, paediatricians and gynaecologists. The results are presented as frequencies, differences in proportions between groups were tested with Pearson's Chi-square, when applicable. Correlations were tested by the Pearson correlation coefficient. The threshold of statistical significance is 5%. Four-hundred-and-sixty individuals filled in the questionnaire of which 42% were medical-doctors, 6% nurses, 27% midwives and 25% non-medical professionals (social-workers and psychologists). 55% of non-medical professionals had provided support for women with FGM/C. Almost 40% of health-professionals knew that there were 4 types of FGM and were able to correctly describe them, 15% were unable to correctly describe any of the 4 types. Those who had already provided care for women with FGM/C were more numerous to know that there were 4 types (52%). Two health-professionals had received requests to perform FGM/C. Twenty-seven midwives and medical-doctors had received requests for re-infibulation. Growing numbers of health and social-care professionals are providing care for women with FGM/C. However, knowledge of FGM/C is suboptimal. Continuous professional training is crucial.

Looking Beyond Neoliberalism: French and Francophone Belgian Cinema and the Crisis by Martin O'shaughnessy (review)

Looking Beyond Neoliberalism: French and Francophone Belgian Cinema and the Crisis by Martin O'shaughnessy (review)

Cosmopolitan Shakespeares in fin-de-siècle Belgian literature

ABSTRACT Among the many signs of Anglophilia in fin-de-siècle Belgian francophone literature, Shakespeare and Elizabethan theatre occupy a special place. They play a fundamental role in defining the aesthetics and identity of many writers and artists. Over and above the adoption of Shakespearean themes by Fernand Khnopff and Maurice Maeterlinck (the 'Belgian Shakespeare'), there is a whole series of translations that link Belgian authors to Shakespeare's century: Georges Eekhoud, Célestin Demblon and Maurice Maeterlinck translated works by Shakespeare or other Elizabethan playwrights; the decadent poet Arthur Symons transposed Émile Verhaeren's 'Les Aubes', which alternates verse and prose, into an 'Elizabethan' form in English. Taken together, these individual examples reveal that the Shakespeare reference functioned as a springboard for literary cosmopolitanism and as an opportunity for these writers to redefine themselves in the interplay between local and global identities.

Looking beyond Neoliberalism: French and Francophone Belgian Cinema and the Crisis by Martin O'Shaughnessy (review)

Looking beyond Neoliberalism: French and Francophone Belgian Cinema and the Crisis by Martin O'Shaughnessy (review)

Beyond the split: re-imagining ‘Belgitude’ in contemporary Belgian cinema

ABSTRACT This article analyses how Belgian identity is articulated in contemporary Belgian cinema. Since the introduction of sound, Belgian cinema has been characterised by a divide between Flemish and Belgian francophone cinema. However, the twenty-first century has seen an increase in co-productions between the two communities. By analysing how these intranational co-productions relate to Belgium and Belgian identity, this article explores the textual implications of this industry trend. Drawing upon the concept of ‘Belgitude’, it teases out two ways in which Belgian identity is re-imagined. Some films explicitly thematise community issues by conveying a message of solidarity between Flanders and the French-speaking community of Belgium, while others show characters that embody Belgium’s cultural complexity, using multilingualism and the city of Brussels as implicit markers of Belgian identity. At odds with the country’s political climate of increasing tensions between the linguistic communities, the revival of ‘Belgitude’ in contemporary Belgian cinema can be considered as a reaction against Flemish nationalist discourses.

The why of candidate selection: How party selectors handle trade-offs between party goals

While the knowledge on how candidate selection happens is flourishing, remarkably little attention has been paid to the selection criteria. Why do selectors prefer some candidates? This study investigates the intricate trade-offs party selectors face when having to compromise between the pursuit of three core party goals: unity, policy, and victory. When candidates score lower on one goal, do selectors favour candidates following the party line, skill for politics or ability to garner votes? Relying on 23 in-depth interviews with party selectors from three Belgian francophone parties (Social Democrats, Greens, and Liberals), this research offers insight into how selectors balance their choices between candidates in a PR list context where the group equilibrium is almost as important as individual assets. I point out the interconnections selectors consider between selection criteria, and hence the need to regard the full picture when studying intra-party competition at the nomination stage.

Internationalization in francophone Belgium

Internationalization in francophone Belgium

Looking Beyond Neoliberalism: French and Fran-cophone Belgian Cinema and the Crisis by Martin O’Shaughnessy (review)

Looking Beyond Neoliberalism: French and Fran-cophone Belgian Cinema and the Crisis by Martin O’Shaughnessy (review)

Converging forces: social movements and the origins of permanent education policy in francophone Belgium

ABSTRACT This article looks at how social movements in francophone Belgium shaped the institutional contours of adult education ‘from below’. It focuses on the integral role played by progressive social movements in the creation of a regional state-based system of adult education in 1976, known as the Service de l’Éducation Permanente (SdEP). Blending historical and sociological methods, it is shown that the SdEP emerged when a movement-based legacy of popular education initially forged as an extension of the labour movement in the francophone community during the late nineteenth century converged with new sets of movement-based actors and ideas emanating from a contentious wave of youth- and student-led protest around 1968. Additional insight is also given into a series of political processes that empowered the efforts of social movement actors working in the field of adult education: regionalisation and Europeanisation.

L’uso delle costruzioni marcate nel teacher talk dell’insegnante di italiano L2 del Belgio francofono

The use of marked structures in the teacher talk of the Italian as L2 teacher in Francophone Belgium
 The aim of this article is to present and discuss the first results of a research study on the teacher talk (TT) for Italian as foreign language (IL2) teachers in Belgium. In particular, data from the pilot corpus of the study, conducted in the French-speaking area of the country, are analysed. The TT is examined from a morphosyntactic point of view, in order to track the presence or absence of some spoken features typical of neo-standard Italian: the marked constructions, i.e. structures that present modifications of the canonical order of the subject-verb-object (SVO) elements, to respond to pragmatic communication goals. TT features could be an indicator of the structure and specificity of the teachers' spoken Italian, and at the same time provide information on their linguistic and cultural identity. IL2 teachers in Francophone Belgium are in fact mostly of Italian origin. This suggests that their TT is probably influenced by their socio-biographic profile as well as their linguistic repertoire.

Intranational film industries: a quantitative analysis of contemporary Belgian cinema

ABSTRACT This article presents a quantitative analysis of Belgian fiction film production between 2000 and 2019. Analysing an extensive database, it explores the current state of Belgian cinema, which is characterised on the one hand by a strong international dimension, and on the other hand by two largely separate intranational industries: a Flemish and a francophone Belgian film industry. Despite the persistent gap between the two industries, a certain rapprochement seems to be manifesting recently. This industrial analysis is preceded by an exploration of the conceptual and practical difficulties and limitations that arise when trying to determine whether a film can be labelled (partly) ‘Belgian’, ‘Flemish’ and/or ‘francophone Belgian’. Emanating from the complexity of the Belgian situation, these difficulties reveal some of the theoretical contradictions of the concept of national cinema. As such, departing from a quantitative study of Belgian cinema, this article also provides an original contribution to ongoing debates on the concept of national cinema.

KEKERASAN DALAM ‘PERSAHABATAN BERACUN’ ANTARPEREMPUAN PADA NOVEL ANTÉCHRISTA KARYA AMÉLIE NOTHOMB

(Title: Violence in Toxic Friendship Between Women in Amélie Nothomb's “Antéchrista” Novel). Violence is often identified with masculine expressions inherent in men. However, in reality, it is not gender-exclusive because women are also enabled to do so, including against those closest to them such as friends, as revealed in the novel Antéchrista by Amélie Nothomb, a Belgian francophone writer. This study aims to examine how the theme of violence in the 'toxic friendship' between women is displayed in the novel. The method used is descriptive qualitative with a feminist literary criticism approach. The data were collected from the novel using the note-taking technique and analyzed using the content analysis technique. The data consisting of words, phrases, and sentences in French were then translated by the researchers to be classified, interpreted, and studied. The result of the research shows that the novel Antéchrista presents women as victims who are also perpetrators of violence through oppression against each other, motivated by jealousy and intrasexual competition. The form of violence is in the form of psychological and verbal which is manifested in the form of intimidation, humiliation, and ostracism. Keywords: opression, toxic friendship, resistensi, women, feminist literature criticism

Interregional fiscal transfers resulting from central government debt: New insights and consequences for political economy

AbstractThe political geography of central government debt has hardly been investigated. We propose a method for calculating implicit interregional transfers stemming from central government debt.We apply this method to Belgium over the 1970‐2016 period. The share of poorer Francophone Belgium in debt‐financed central government spending was persistently larger than its share in central government revenue used to pay the resulting interest bills. The opposite holds for richer Flanders. Also, a primary deficit in one particular year leads to an interest bill in each of the following years as long as debt caused by that primary deficit is not repaid. All the above caused debt‐related transfers from Flanders to Francophone Belgium of over 7% of Flemish GDP during many years.Interregional interest transfers may also be large in the many other democracies suffering from both high central government debt and considerable geographic income disparities.The size of these transfers may in turn explain the size and persistence of central government deficits. This is also because poorer, less densely populated regions such as Francophone Belgium tend to be overrepresented within central governments. This strengthens their ability to cause deficits.We recommend more fiscal decentralisation or at least smaller central government deficits.

De la Flandre insolite au fantastique, une spécialité de la littérature belge francophone

This paper shows how the image of the uncanny Flanders, elaborated in the early nineteenth century by Madame de Staël as well as by French writers and voyagers contributed to the specificity of Belgian francophone literature and especially to the creation of the concept of the Belgian school of the bizarre. He examines the impact of the hetero-image on self-image and the role of literature in the formation and perpetuation of the stereotype of Belgium, land of strange. It reveals how Belgian writers used, petrified and propagated this image to build their difference and show their belgité in order to make it a specificity of Belgium.

Pedagogies of Solidarity

Abstract Sociological scholarship on social movements has shed important light on the role of knowledge production for processes of collective action and mobilization. However, much of this research overlooks the question of how movement-based knowledge emerges from within institutionalized settings of formal education. Drawing on a qualitative case study, this article examines the repertoire of knowledge-building practices mobilized from within a state-based system of adult education in francophone Belgium. Building on social movement theory, it is shown how formalized sites of adult education can empower the presence of social movements in society when they adopt counter-hegemonic principles of popular education that allow them to act as free spaces which facilitate the construction of strategic capacities and collective identities.

Face and Content Validity, Acceptability, and Feasibility of the Adapted Version of the Children's Palliative Outcome Scale: A Qualitative Pilot Study.

Objective: To assess the face and content validity, acceptability and feasibility of a French version of the Children's Palliative Outcome Scale (CPOS). Background: Instruments in French used to measure outcomes in pediatric palliative care are lacking. Methods: After forward-backward translation of the 12-item English CPOS to French, we conducted a qualitative pilot study. During semi structured interviews among children and parents, we used the CPOS, the Schedule for the Evaluation of Individual Quality of Life interview guide (SEIQoL) and the Quality of Life in Life-threatening Illness-Family Carer questionnaire (QOLLTI-F), in addition to three expert meetings with PLTs. Results: Fourteen children and adolescents (8-18 years) with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions cared for at home, in hospital or in respite care services, 19 parents, and 9 members of 4 pediatric liaison teams (PLTs) providing palliative care in a Belgian francophone region were included in the study. No families refused to participate. All children with verbal capacities chose to be interviewed in the presence of their parents and a PLT member. The children valued being given the opportunity to share their experiences. New QOL dimensions pertaining to social, emotional, and administrative health-care related issues were added to the original version of the 12-item CPOS, leading to a 22-item CPOS-2. Discussion: The CPOS-2 was perceived as relevant and easy to use by the principal stakeholders. Our study paves the way for a large-scale field study assessing its psychometric characteristics and its implementation in routine clinical care.

Mezi Prahou a Paříží. Neznámé a málo známé „hrdinky“ česko-francouzského kulturního světa první poloviny 20. století

The article describes the lives of several Czech-French female ‘heroines’, writers and scientists active in the first half of the 20th century who we encountered in connection with research into book provenances in Czech and French institutions and whose fates are little known, or even unknown, to the Czech and French cultural public. The first part, entitled ‘Paris in Prague and Prague in Paris’, tells the story of two women, a Francophone Belgian and a Czech living in France. The second part, ‘French Women Married to Czechs’, maps the lives of three French women who were engaged in pedagogical, translation, educational and scientific activities and who were forced to leave Czechoslovakia after 1948 for political reasons. The last part, ‘The Daughter of a Famous Father’, deals with the life of the Bohemist Jacqueline Mazon, the daughter of the distinguished French Slavist André Mazon.

Left-wing populist discourse in Belgium: The effect of the rise of the Parti du Travail de Belgique on mainstream parties

Since 2009, the rise of the most important Belgian Francophone left-wing populist party, i.e. the Parti du Travail de Belgique (PTB), has been increasingly seen as a challenge for mainstream parties. Given the lack of research on Belgium within the field of political left-populist discourse, this paper analyses the effect of the growing popularity of the left-populist party on mainstream parties’ discourse. To investigate this issue, a discourse analysis has been conducted following the Modified Spatial Theory which argues that, when triggered, mainstream parties choose between three different strategies (accommodative, dismissive, or adversarial) to respond to the rise of populism. The findings show that, the rise of the PTB has had more effect on the Socialist Party’s discourse, which has accommodated and converged with the PTB on several typically populist issues, while the other two mainstream parties have rather dismissed and tried to discredit the political discourse of the PTB.

Lichaam van Christus worden

Abstract The present article aims at making again a connection with central intuitions of the early Liturgical Movement in francophone Belgium at the outset of the 20th century. The reason for doing that is that it is still quite uncommon for professional theologians to consider liturgy as a real source for theologizing. The major focus of the article is the Body of Christ, a profound image, symbol, doctrine and reality, the impact and potential of which were rediscovered then in the circle of Benedictine monasteries. It was interpreted both in an ecclesial and sacramental way and it arguably constituted the basis for many other theological renewals prompted by subsequent representatives of the Liturgical Movement. Relying on a careful analysis of key texts by Dom Columba Marmion (1858-1923), Dom Lambert Beauduin (1873-1960) and Dom Maurice Festugière (1870-1950), I argue that their dealings with ‘liturgy intuitions’ – which are not equal to ‘liturgical intuitions’ – should be retrieved not only for scholarly purposes but, even more so, for a deepened understanding of the intrinsic and organic connections between Church, liturgy, Christ and life.