Groundwork for the Anthropology of Belgium: An Overlooked Microcosm of Europe

Building Bridges over Troubled Waters

“…Nationalism, nationness and national borders exemplify the backwardness, outdatedness and irrationality of yesteryear -an instinct to be pacified and a bondage to be liberated from. As Marc Blainey (2016) argues in his outline for a contemporary anthropology of Belgium, these modes of Europeanness are imbued with a certain Belgianness or 'belgitude' whereby nationness is expressed through a studied apprehension toward the reality of 'the nation' itself. The integration process of 'ever closer union' is thus read as a ripening, coming-of-age evolution into a state of Kantian 'maturity' or Baudelairean 'self-elaboration' and out of the moral and intellectual folly of youth (Foucault and Rabinow 1984).…”

An Anthropology of the Irish in Belgium

“…The risk that is run in paying insufficient attention to Belgium as an area of interest is not just the fact that it is an interesting and commonly overlooked site in its own right (See Blainey 2016), but also that it is home to a staggering amalgamation of peoples; the capital, Brussels, houses people from 179 nations. 2 This cosmopolitanism is also complemented by observable examples of more expected cultural fare, such as ethnically themed restaurants and, in the case of the Irish, pubs.…”

When Food Waste Goes to Work

“…Interns there are paid by government contracts that allow them to learn woodworking skills. theatres, in which she expertly historises traditions of rod puppetry in Liège and argues that these theatrical productions link language usage with structures of social power and reveal local identity struggles; and fi nally, Blainey's (2016) work describing an experience in a Belgian library while researching indigenous American societies, in which he realizes a need for more ethnographic research to be conduced . .…”

“…Th e city is overfl owing with tensions over the sorts of issues anthropologists care about, especially having to do with equity, labour and belonging. And as Blainey (2016) argues, there is simply a lot of government operating in a place where government intervention in everyday life is already constitutionally guaranteed.…”