Shifting Narratives, Shifting Identities: the Emergence of a Brussels Regional Identity

In a world of shifting power dynamics, national narratives, that is the stories, myths and frames that construct a nation's self-understanding, have long been identified as crucial concept to understand the emergence and maintenance of a polity. Narrative-centred studies often highlight the underlying ideologies, the explicit and implicit political demands, the actors involved in their construction and perpetuation as well as their public reception. With the growing pressure of regionalisation, however, the salience and success of national narratives extend beyond nation-building. They can shape the state design and, hence, determine the future of subnational communities, including whether such community will gain political autonomy within the larger nation-state. Similarly, the subnational communities may contest and claim its place within the greater national framework through counternarratives. While much of the scientific literature has traditionally focused on the highly politicised struggle of regionalist elites and their nationalist counterparts, regionalisation has also led to the emergence of regions with low levels of politicization. In such cases, subnational elites face the challenge of articulating a coherent narrative to give meaning to their community. The paper observes the evolution of subnational narratives in the Belgian Brussels-Capital Region (BCR). The BCR had originally been envisioned as a non-aligned zone, situated at the crossroad between Belgium's French- and Dutch-speaking community. Given its bilingual character, its identity has been viewed as 'double-faced' - a perspective that aligns with its bilingual institutional framework, which ensure the representation of both Dutch- and French-speakers. However, the socio-demographic and linguistic landscape of Brussels has evolved significantly. We argue that these changes have challenged the pre-eminence of the narrative of the BCR as a 'synthesis of Belgium's two primary linguistic communities'. Drawing on thirty in-depth interviews with Members of the Brussels Regional Parliament this study examines how these elites conceptualise the region's identity. Specifically, it asks: How is it discursively constructed by political elites? Which features are emphasised or de-emphasised? Which political demands/institutional preferences arise from their narration? In doing so, the paper shows that the identity of the BCR is increasingly narrated around inclusive multiculturality and multilingualism. This evolving narrative challenges the continued legitimacy of the region’s binary institutional structure and reflects an emerging "self-confidence" regarding Brussels’ distinct role within the Belgian federal system.