Crafting a Flemish Past and Identity through Mundane Bureaucratic Technologies: Transcending Discourse Analysis in Heritage Studies

The politicisation of the past is often associated with strong discursive statements and the operationalization of primordial symbols and captivating myths rooting the nation in their ancestral homelands. Similarly, research on the European far-right’s strong use of heritage and memory has predominantly been investigated through discourse analysis and the hermeneutic study of material representation practices. Although it is true that many right-wing groups in Europe and beyond promote their agendas through strong statements in the media and during rallies, or by appropriating sites and artefacts as part of their nationalistic portfolio, at the same time seemingly invisible bureaucratic procedures and practices are also entangling subjects with the identity policies of many of the more conservative right-leaning parties currently in power and shaping the institutional landscapes of Europe.

By drawing on an institutional ethnography of the Flemish heritage agency this paper will point researchers from the field of heritage and memory studies to the shortcomings of studies only focussing on those political tools like discourse and symbolic politics traditionally associated with studies of nationalism. The Flemish government, aware of the contestations surrounding Flemish identity politics, might not be actively promoting and using historical myths and symbols, the bureaucratization of the practices connected to the protection and preservation of heritage through a system of permits, on-line archives and digital research infrastructures has encouraged archaeologists and historians to think in terms of Flanders and produce historical narratives favouring a Flemish framing of the past instead of a Belgian one.