Abstract
Linguistic differences gained prominence in Belgium in the twentieth century. An internal language border was administratively established in 1962. Flanders and Wallonia are since conceived of as different monolingual regions within Belgium. The social sciences, including sociology, benefited from the rapid expansion of the academic system after World War II, but the regionalization also led to fragmentation. Different sociological communities were constituted at both sides of the language border. This chapter discusses the genesis and institutionalization of these sociologies in Belgium. It also shows how sociological descriptions in/of Belgium have been instrumental in (de-)constructing particular social identities—at either the national or the regional level.
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- 1.
German and Luxemburgish are also spoken within Belgium, especially in the east and south-east. We will, however, not discuss these languages, as no German- or Luxemburgish-speaking institutions of higher education or scientific research exist within present-day Belgium.
- 2.
“melt all citizens into a national mass”. The passage is quoted by Peter Burke (2004, p. 10).
- 3.
In the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century, both the French (up to 1815) and the Dutch (between 1815 and 1830) already legislated on linguistic matters on what is today Belgian territory according to the modern idea of “one state, one nation, one language”, albeit with completely different intentions.
- 4.
Immediately after the First World War, universal suffrage for Belgian men was introduced (for all women, suffrage was only instated after the Second World War). The new system replaced a plural voting system, which had been favouring the French-speaking elite. The new system hence shifted political power to the Flemings.
- 5.
Since the underlying basic principle of this reform was to produce linguistically homogeneous administrative entities, several adjustments had to be made, transferring 25 communes with about 87.450 inhabitants from Flanders to Wallonia and 24 communes with about 23.250 inhabitants from Wallonia to Flanders. Some exceptions were granted for a few communes around Brussels; in communes which harboured a considerable linguistic minority, provisions had to be made enabling this minority to communicate in its own language with communal authorities and to obtain limited possibilities for instruction in its own language (for an instructive account of the sociolinguistic ‘problems’, see Willemyns 2013, p. 164–170).
- 6.
At the same time, however, the liberals pressed for information about religious professionals and their work in schools and hospitals. They aimed at an overview of the numerical strength of the ‘sacred militia’ of the Catholic Church. Despite much protest from the Catholics, from 1856 to 1947, the census included a special count of the members and activities of all religious orders and congregations (Vanderstraeten 2002; Louckx 2017b).
- 7.
To unburden the text, we refer to the Belgian census reports by the letter B followed by the year the census was taken. It should also, and once again, be taken into account that French was long Belgium’s only official language. Until 1930, all the census reports were drafted solely in French. For more detailed socio-historical analyses of Belgian state-istics, see Louckx (2014, 2017a, b) and Louckx and Vanderstraeten (2014, 2015).
- 8.
Election results are now sometimes used as indicators of the proportions of the different language communities. For the bilingual region of Brussels and some of its surrounding municipalities, estimates are also made on the basis of the language in which identity cards or driving licences are issued.
- 9.
Rowntree saw pillarization as follows: “A fact in connection with Belgian party politics which strikes an outsider is the deep cleavage which they carry into the whole social structure. There is extraordinary little social intercourse between Catholics and Liberals, and practically none between Catholics and Socialists. Politics enter into almost every phase of social activity and philanthropic effort, and it is the exception, rather than the rule, for persons holding different political opinions to co-operate in any other matter. Thus, in one town there will be a Catholic, a Liberal, and a Socialist trade union, a Catholic, a Liberal, and a Socialist co-operative bakery, a Catholic, a Liberal, and a Socialist thrift society all catering for similar people, but each confining its attentions to members of its own political party. The separation extends to cafés, gymnasia, choral, temperance, and literary societies, indeed it cuts right through life” (1911, p. 24). The extent of these divisions has later also surprised other sociological observers (e.g. Fox 1979.)
- 10.
The democratization of secondary education and the expansion of the student finance system for higher education led to unprecedented growth in student recruitment in the 1940s and 1950s. In his report to the bishops on the first post-war academic year, 1945–1946, the rector magnificus Honoré van Waeyenbergh referred to a “record” of 7.600 enrolments; in the last year of his reign, 1961–1962, this number had almost doubled to around 14.900, almost 2.900 of whom were women (see Tollebeek and Nys 2006, p. 13).
- 11.
The history of SABENA , the Belgian national airline from 1923 to the end of 2001, provides a telling illustration of the weakness of the contemporary federal Belgian state. In 2001, SABENA went bankrupt shortly after the September 11 attacks in the USA. Although a number of other airlines also faced serious economic troubles at that time, most nations were able to maintain their national airlines. In most parts of the world, a national aviation company was and is indeed still widely regarded as an indispensable attribute of ‘nationhood’. In early-twenty-first century Belgium, however, the regional political parties did not prove able (or willing) to find a solution for the national airline. In the context of discussions about the future of the Belgian nation-state, SABENA’s bankruptcy was highly symbolic. The company that later took over is called Brussels Airlines. Its territorial reference is to Brussels, the capital of Europe, not to Belgium.
- 12.
We do not imply that there are no analyses of these linguistic divisions. In fact, historical overviews abound. Some interesting sociolinguistic work has also been published. But non-partisan sociological work, which looks at the social construction of the regional or national imaginaries in Belgium hardly exists.
- 13.
Two former students of Mercier and his Higher Institute of Philosophy, Edouard Crahay and Jean Halleux, had already been appointed to teach sociology in Liège and Ghent at the end of the nineteenth century. In line with their neo-thomist training, they did not do much to further the case of sociology as a scientific discipline (Wils 1997).
- 14.
Haesaert, however, described himself as agnostic. At the same time, he emphasized the social function of Catholicism. He defended a conservative ideology: the reflective, doubting attitude of philosophy was fit for the social and intellectual elite, while Catholicism had to serve the ‘low classes’ (Haesaert 1920).
- 15.
The first ISA president, the Chicago sociologist Louis Wirth, was expected to chair the World Congress in Liège. But his sudden death in 1952, and the lack of an immediate successor, created a difficult interregnum for the ISA (see http://www.isa-sociology.org/en/about-isa/history-of-isa/isa-past-presidents/, last accessed on May 2, 2017). Reports of the World Congress can be found in UNESCO’s International Social Science Bulletin (1954, number 1) and the two volumes of the Transactions of the Second World Congress of Sociology (International Sociological Association 1954). There are some differences between the activities listed at both places; we have followed the Transactions, which were published after the Bulletin issue. During the World Congress, the Louvain sociologist Pierre de Bie , who was one of the rapporteurs at the Liège Congress, was elected member of the ISA Council. On behalf of the ISA, Pierre de Bie published an overview of university teaching in the social sciences (UNESCO 1954). Previously, he had also worked in UNESCO’s Social Sciences Department on international tensions (Rangil 2011).
- 16.
The ASBLF disappeared in the 1990s, but a new association of French-speaking Belgian sociologists and anthropologists was created in 2009 ( Association Belge Francophone de Sociologie et Anthropologie ). It held its first conference at the end of 2016. VVS is currently the only Belgian collective member of ISA.
- 17.
From the onset, the sociology programme in Louvain consisted of both a Francophone and a Flemish section. In 1966, a Dutch-speaking programme was also created in Brussels (Vilrokx 1977; Gerard 1999). But this programme led to a degree in the social sciences. Initially, it relied heavily on lecturers from the Netherlands.
- 18.
The University Foundation was set up during the First World War in order to support university education in Belgium; after the war, remaining funds of international (predominantly American) Belgian Relief Organizations were reoriented towards the University Foundation. Its sister organization, the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF), was established in 1920. Both organizations again illustrate that international ties (and the ensuing expectations regarding ‘legitimate’ or ‘necessary’ activities for nation-states) are necessary to help survive the national level in Belgium. For an overview of the statistical reports of the Foundation, see http://www.fondationuniversitaire.be/en/content/statistical-reports (last accessed on May 2, 2017).
- 19.
It might be added that the ‘Louvain question ’ led to the split of sociology in Louvain . Several bilingual sociologists, including Pierre de Bie , opted for Louvain-la-Neuve after the split of their Catholic Alma Mater. In Brussels, on the other hand, the Institut de Sociologie was not divided up; its staff remained part of the French-speaking Université Libre de Bruxelles. In the newly established Dutch-speaking Vrije Universiteit Brussel, a new monolingual sociological institute was created. But this institute did not establish its own publication venue.
- 20.
At the start of the twentieth century, De Raet was hired by the Institut de Sociologie Solvay . He provided research assistance for the aforementioned study of B.S. Rowntree and later obtained a Ph.D. in economics. He is mostly remembered for his role in an early campaign to introduce Dutch at the State University of Ghent.
- 21.
Between 1962 and 2004, this Dutch journal intended to make the ‘best’ of Dutch sociology available to a broader audience by publishing English translations of a selection of articles previously published in Dutch journals. It appeared under different titles: Sociologia Neerlandica, The Netherlands’ Journal of Sociology, and The Netherlands Journal of the Social Sciences successively. Although this journal also no longer exists, it was more successful than its Flemish imitation. We will deal in more detail with the institutionalization of internationalization imperatives in Belgium and the Netherlands in the next chapter.
- 22.
George Sarton was an alumnus of Ghent University, who fled to England and the United States after the German invasion of Belgium in 1914. In the New World, he became an influential historian of science. While he was, for more than four decades, the owner and editor of the journal Isis, which was and still is one of the major journals devoted to the history of science, he is often considered to be one of the founding fathers of this disciplinary specialization (Vanderstraeten and Vandermoere 2015). In 1984, at the centenary of Sarton’s birthday, Ghent University established the George Sarton Chair of History of Science. Robert Merton , who had been a Ph.D. student of George Sarton and Talcott Parsons at Harvard University, lectured in Ghent on the Matthew effect in science (see Merton 1985, 1988).
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Vanderstraeten, R., Louckx, K. (2018). Language. In: Sociology in Belgium. Sociology Transformed. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55663-9_3
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