Research Marnix Beyen

Abstract

This research project aims to offer an empirical and conceptual contribution to Belgian and international resistance and women's historiography by gendering our view of resistance during the Second World War. This means that we will simultaneously focus on the activities of women in the Belgian resistance and on the discourses in which they were wrapped – systematically comparing them to the practices and norms of their male counterparts. We start from the hypothesis that in their resistance engagement, women were not – as is generally assumed – limited to a primarily supportive position and that they broke through traditional gender stereotypes by stepping out of the domestic sphere, or even by bringing the resistance into the domestic sphere. We expect to find a contradiction between the activities of women in the resistance and the discourse that was used by resistance environments to explain this presence of women in their midst. In order to mobilize women, thus the hypothesis, resistance environments needed to present a resistance engagement as an 'acceptable' activity for women, so it was tempting to present women's resistance activities as a continuation of their traditional roles. This could help to explain why, after the war, it was so difficult to give a transformative meaning to this transformative experience. In order to make this general ambition operational, this research project aims to answer two complementary questions: (1) what was the wartime discourse of the clandestine press on the role of women in the resistance, and (2) how does this wartime discourse compare to actual female resistance activity in Belgium during the Second World War? In order to answer the first research question, we will apply a quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis to the entirely digitized corpus of Belgian clandestine papers of the Second World War. To reach the second research objective, this project will conduct archival research with regard to three case-studies, allowing us to investigate the activities and position of resistance women in three different ideological and geographical contexts. For each of these contexts, the focus will be on a different resistance organization: the Belgian Communist Party in Liège, the White Brigade in Antwerpen, the Secret Army in Western Flanders. While concentrating on the archival sources for these organizations, however, we hope indirectly also to detect forms of female resistance in other organizations as well as non-organized forms of female resistance in the same locality.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Fellow: Corthals Michèle

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

This research proposal aims to study the political embedding of French consumption (i.e. 'French consumerism'), and questions how political debates have shaped commercial parlor in an age of regime change (c.1780-c.1870). Heavily indebted by the idea that the shift from an absolutist state to a modern liberal nation caused a general 'depoliticisation' of emerging French consumer society, historians have, in general, refrained from analysing how consumption was actually embedded in political discourses. This proposal's first objective is to reconstruct and analyse emerging political visions on the relationship between the French consumer and society. Through discursively analysing discussions about consumerism in parliamentary sources, this research will show how competing political ideologies (i.e. liberalism, republicanism and conservatism) have tried to frame consumption as a political-ideological project. Our second objective is to test whether these political reimaginings of consumption had a concrete influence on commercial discourse, more in particular on advertising language. By a serial and long-term discursive analysis of a varied range of commercial advertisements, the particular political framing of consumer choice and advertisement parlor will become clear. Given its unique position as both centre of political change and prime consumer market of the nation, Paris – capital of fashion, luxury and politics – will prove to be the ideal test case for this study.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Van Damme Ilja
• Co-promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Fellow: De Smet Charris

Research team(s)

• Centre for Urban History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

In 2010, Power in History created Plenum.be, an internet-resource on which the Proceedings of the Belgian House of Representatives for the years between 1844 and 1999 were made available and fully searchable; Today, this widely used but technically deficient tool urgently needs a thorough update. With the project, we specifically want to 1) develop a new project database, in order to deliver robust search performance, 2) design a new project website, 3) re-process the available text corpus with state-of-the-art OCR software, 4) identify the structure of the parliamentary debates (different speakers and speeches), 5) create a new server for the project, hosted at the central UAntwerpen server room. As such, we want to enhance considerably the availibility of this tool for both academic and non-academic researchers, and to create possibilities for innovative forms of discursive analysis (also at an international and interdisciplinary level).

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Co-promoter: de Smaele Henk
• Co-promoter: Van Ginderachter Maarten

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

This sabbatical leave is intended to finish three ongoing publication projects: 1) "De taal van de geschiedenis" [The language of history], a handbook for the course Geschiedenis & Taal, but at the same time a practical treatise for everyone wanting to apply discourse analysis to written historical sources and anyone writing about history. 2) "The Parisians and their Deputies. A Local History of National Politics, 1880-1930", an academic monograph about the direct interactions between 'ordinary Parisian citizens and their députés, based primarly on letters written by these citizens. 3) "Het volkerentijdperk? Een politieke geschiedenis van de wereld sinds 1776" [The era of the people(s)?. A political history of the world since 1776", a handbook for the course Nieuwste Tijd: Politek en Instellingen, but at the same time reflexive synthesis intended for a broader audience on the paradoxes of democratic ambitions and political practices in the world since the era of the Atlantic Revolutions.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

This project offers an in-depth study of the polymorphic reception of the Middle Dutch or 'Flemish' mystical author Hadewijch (ca. 1240) within the intellectual field and the wider socio-cultural field in Interwar Flanders (including Brussels), a society characterized by acute 'pillarization'. The enthusiast appropriation of the hitherto hardly known oeuvre of Hadewijch by a remarkably broad range of intellectuals belonging to very different circles – traditional Catholics, francophone modernists, avant-garde artists - challenges us to rethink the common frame of an all-pervasive polarization between Catholic and 'liberal' ideologies and between the traditional and the modern(ist), and will enable us to detect diverse forms of Flemish identification which remained largely unexplored until now. A combined approach will be used that draws on methods and concepts of reception studies, discourse analysis and imagology. Firstly, a material and contextual analysis of the Hadewijch publications published in Belgium in the Interwar Period, will lead to a list of Hadewijch transmitters; a view of the networks between them, and an understanding of their ideologies The results will be complemented by archival research. Secondly, a discursive and narrative analysis of a selection of texts will be carried out in order to study the symbolic production of a national figure. An 'indexical' reading of the Hadewijch-texts will allow us to create a nuanced typology of the constructed Hadewijch images, and to uncover the motives underlying the dissemination of her work. Thirdly, the correlation of the findings of steps one and two will reveal differences and/or similarities between types of appropriation processes at work, and will uncover unexpected crossings between the ideologies and networks of the key mediators within the different sites of Hadewijch appropriation. This will allow us to draw nuanced conclusions about the cultural and political significance of Hadewijch's reception in Interwar Flanders The study will result in an innovative cultural history of Interwar Flanders, as the unique perspective of the multifocal circulation and appropriation of a female medieval poet, mystic and visionary, will compel us to depart from fixed divisions. Moreover, the study significantly contributes to Dutch literary history as it writes an important and as yet unkown chapter in the reception history of Hadewijch, who today is considered to be one of the major authors of Dutch literature and of Western mysticism. On a more general level, the project will deepen our understanding of the uses of literary heritage in the complex processes of identity formation.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Fraeters Veerle
• Co-promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Fellow: Nuyts Tijl

Research team(s)

• Research centre Ruusbroec Institute

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

A multidisciplinary network of experts and research groups that will explore the sites and expressions of 'knowledge transpositions' that occur between the intellectual production taking place in different disciplines and the culture, writing and practice of architecture, looking at how cross-polinating 'nomadic' concepts rearranged architectural knowledge. Het network will primarily focus on three specific fora: architectural education and training, building-related bureaucracy and literary imagination.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

During the First World War approximately 4 million non-white people were enrolled in the armies. Many of them served in Europe. It was the very first time in history that so many non-whites were transported to what the Indian historian Santanu Das has called "the heart of whiteness". Here, they were confronted with utter barbarism in the continent that was regularly presented as the "cradle of civilization". I will explore the consequences, both short- and long-term, both on the individual and on a collective level, of these engagements in several domains of human activity : politics, culture,etc. Therefore, I will sketch the reasons why minorities or 'minorized majorities' from a (semi-)colonial context were tempted to join the war effort and brought over to Europe, how their experiences of reiteration and alienation in the Great War led to disillusionment and ultimately to political action and an often contested legacy lasting to today. In order to guarantee the feasability of the project, it will include only the Indian, Chinese and West-Indian troops that were engaged in the war efforts of the British Army at the Belgian front.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Fellow: Dendooven Dominiek

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The First World War is often represented as a catalyst of democratizing tendencies. Populations in Europe and elsewhere wanted to be rewarded with more power for the sacrifices they had paid for the sake of the state. Until today, historians have extensively investigated how this claim was formulated by organized movements and political élites. This project, on the contrary, aims at revealing whether and how this claim was equally expressed by 'ordinary', unorganized citizens. In more concrete terms, the project focuses on the personal interactions between 'ordinary citizens' and MPs in Belgium and France between 1910 and 1930, as they are reflected in the preserved correspondences. Next to tracking the explicit demands for democratizing measures in the letters written by 'ordinary people' to MPs, the project will also investigate whether the general language of these correspondences became more 'democratic'. Moreover, in order to measure the political impact of those democratizing impulses from below, a systematic attempt will be made to follow their traces in the parliamentary actions and discourses of the selected MPs.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Fellow: Lauwers Karen

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

This project represents a formal research agreement between UA and on the other hand Stad Antwerpen. UA provides Stad Antwerpen research results mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions as stipulated in this contract.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Taking its cue from current international research on favouritism in Early Modern politics, this project studies the appearance of the valido or 'minister-favourite' in the Habsburg Low Countries. Few historians have hitherto realized that the 17th-century court of Brussels witnessed the rise of two powerful princely favourites who dominated the political scene of their day. Surprisingly, these courtiers have never been subjected to a thorough investigation, let alone a comparative analysis. By examining the careers of the validos of the Archdukes Albert & Isabella (1598-1621) and the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (1647-1656) respectively, the project aims to demonstrate that the political historiography on the Spanish Netherlands is in need of a revision. Historians have seldom paid heed to the dynamics of favouritism, nor have they recognized the importance of the informal mechanisms of policymaking. Clearly, a thorough analysis of the politics of intimacy at the court of Brussels could greatly contribute to our understanding of the Habsburg regime in the Netherlands. Moreover, by comparing these little-known individuals to other validos of the age, the question as to whether or not the preponderance of minister-favourites in 17th-century Europe should be considered a distinct phase in the process of state formation will be reassessed.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Fellow: Raeymaekers Dries

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The project 'Diplomacy in times of democratization. An enquiry into the culture of the Belgian diplomatic community, 1910-1940' aims at measuring the influence of the process of democratization on the evolution of diplomatic culture during the interwar period. 'Diplomatic culture' will be studied from a political-cultural perspective, considering elements of self-representation and behaviour of the Belgian diplomats as a social entity and applying insights from discourse analysis theory, sociology and IR theory.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Fellow: Auwers Michael

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

This project investigates how political elites of the subnational movements and administrations in Belgium constructed, during five periods of about twenty years, the national 'Other' in their discourses, and what rhetorical strategies they used to that end. The research goal is to assess the extent to which such 'othering' discourse contributed to the successful institutionalization of subnational movements in Belgium.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Co-promoter: Sinardet Dave
• Co-promoter: Verschueren Jef

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

This project will lay the fundaments for an integral digitalization of the Proceedings of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives. Covering the period between 1870 and 1940, the PDF-documents provided by the services of the Chamber will be turned into flexibly searchable OCR-documents, which will be saved in a sustainable digital standard. Through the creation of a research website, the database will be rendered publicly accessible.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Since the groundbreaking work by Lynn Hunt, François Furet and other pioneer representatives of the cultural turn in French revolutionary research, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to revolutionary historical culture. The predominant interpretation of the revolution as an intentional break with the past – if at the same time a cyclical move in its intention to return to mankind's origin – is hardly ever challenged. Especially so in the regions annexed to France or converted into sister republics. Qualifying the period of French occupation as alien to their national history, patriotic historians of the later nation states that developed out of these occupied territories have willingly emphasized the antithesis between French revolutionary ideology and indigenous traditions. Thus, the anti-historical and alien features of French revolutionary thinking have continuously been stressed. This project seeks to qualify both assumptions by carefully re-examining the historical discourse issued by French revolutionary authorities in Belgium. Recent transnational trends in historical research have replaced the old dichotomy between occupier and occupied with a much more dynamical conception of mutual influencing and borrowing. This process is clearly visible in the historical discourse issued by revolutionary authorities in occupied Belgium. When addressing the inhabitants, the officials subtly borrowed from native historical discourses in trying to legitimize French rule. As it turns out, elements from both national and local history were actively appropriated rather than rejected. These findings challenge the predominant view of official French revolutionary discourse as anti-historical and impervious to the local context. Thus, this projects calls for a new understanding of the role of historical discourse in the French administration of the occupied territories. Its range extends to the Napoleonic period, in which history regained a new prominence in state policy. However, many of the historical themes developed by local Napoleonic administration rooted in the historical interpretations issued by their revolutionary and Directoire predecessors. On the other hand, meaningful shifts in historical explanation illustrate the active use of historical discourse in legitimizing Napoleonic rule.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: De Munck Bert
• Co-promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Fellow: Deseure Brecht

Research team(s)

• Centre for Urban History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

In this project, the German occupation administration of the First and the Second World War in Belgium will be studied from within, as an internally coherent structure embedded in society. By using a perspective of intertemporal comparison, it tries to reveal similarities, continuities and differences between both administrations. Thus, it aims at providing insights into the history of military occupation as a specific form of politics. The starting point is that occupation administrations are transnational political organizations: they operate outside the political and social context of the authorities to which they are responsible. Therefore, they have to acquire legitimity both in the eyes of the political authorities of their home-country as in those of the population of the occupied country. This project tries to trace those processes of legitimization by focusing on the social composition and cohesion of those occupation administrations, and on their interaction with the population of the occupied country. It is situated at the crossroads of political, social and cultural history, but it uses insights from organizational sociology and cultural anthropology. Methodologically, a combination of prosopography, network analysis and discourse analysis will be brought to work.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Co-promoter: Van Goethem Herman

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

By means of a systematic and comparative enquiry into the use of the first person plural in four Western European Chambers of Deputies, this research project investigates transformations in the phenomenon of political representation during a period of rapid democratization, as well as developments in the range of identities expressed in this process.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Co-promoter: de Smaele Henk
• Co-promoter: Verschueren Jef

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The relationship of ethnic and religious minorities in an urban context is characterized traditionally by two movements that at first glance may seem contradictory. Such minorities are forced to integrate to various degrees. Yet they seek to preserve their identity by establishing symbolic and material borders or boundaries between themselves and the surrounding society, thus creating and maintaining a form of (self)segregation. This project will research how these two mechanisms manifested themselves within a concrete case study, namely, that of the Antwerp Jewish community in the first half of the twentieth century. The extent to which the Second World War, which had tragic consequences for this Jewish community, influenced these mechanisms is an integral part of the research question.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Fellow: Vanden Daelen Veerle

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The project 'Diplomacy in times of democratization. An enquiry into the culture of the Belgian diplomatic community, 1910-1940' aims at measuring the influence of the process of democratization on the evolution of diplomatic culture during the interwar period. 'Diplomatic culture' will be studied from a political-cultural perspective, considering elements of self-representation and behaviour of the Belgian diplomats as a social entity and applying insights from discourse analysis theory, sociology and IR theory.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Fellow: Auwers Michael

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

By way of the study of historical practices, this investigation seeks to draw attention on historical consciousness as it was experienced and generated within society. To make an abstract category as 'historical consciousness' more concrete, the focus will lie on the implicit or explicit use of historical discourses in daily practice. The early modern city presents itself as an interesting context. Various groups of inhabitants tried to legitimate their positions and ideas about society by making an appeal to stories about their pasts. By tracing the different uses of these stories, we can try to understand their position towards and their way of experiencing history. Two main questions will be asked: 1) how did various groups within society make use of the past, both towards each other and towards the central government. 2) How did perceptions of the past and historical consciousness change under influence of structural transformations within society in the second half of the 18th century?

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: De Munck Bert
• Co-promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Fellow: Deseure Brecht

Research team(s)

• Centre for Urban History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

In this project the political culture of the national elections of 1919, 1928 and 1936 within the arrondissement of Antwerp will be subjected to a thorough multi-actor research. It will be researched whether in the discourse and the practices of the political elites, the intermediate structures, the journalists and the electorate a political specificity of Antwerp was articulated, and to which degree this specificity resulted from a sense of alienation towards national politics.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix
• Co-promoter: Van Goethem Herman

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The central aim of the project is: A diachronical analysis of the social role of screen culture in Flanders (1895-2004) as a result of the tensions between commercial and ideological forces (in particular 'pillarisation') and the actual consumption, through a study of cinemas and film consumption in interaction with modernity public space and urbanisation. This central aim is realised in three research parts: PART 1 This part consists of an extended inventory of existing and historical cinemas in Flanders (1895-2004) with attention for the geographical distribution and the relations between the commercial and the 'pillarised' circuit. PART 2 Analysis of the interaction between ideology (in particular 'pillarisation'), economics and screen culture through diachronical research on cinemas, film exhibition and programming in metropolitan (Antwerp and Ghent), provincial (Deinze, Lier) and rural context (Geel, location to be determined). P ART 3 Analysis of the interaction between ideology, economics and film consumption through historical audience research on the role of cinemas and film consumption (cinema, video, DVD, television, internet) in the experience of leisure culture in Antwerp, Ghent, Deinze, Lier, Geel and a location to be determined.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Meers Philippe
• Co-promoter: Beyen Marnix

Research team(s)

• Visual and Digital Cultures Research Center (ViDi)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The instoration of a Bachelor-Master degree in history makes political history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries into a full-fledged field of education and research at the University of Antwerp. Within this field, a cross-fertilization between literature-based education at the Bachelor-level and original research activities at level of the Masters and of the PhD will be aimed at.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Beyen Marnix

Research team(s)

• Power in History - Centre for Political History

Project type(s)

• Research Project