Parameters of nation-ness and citizenship in Belgium (1846–1947)

This chapter focuses on the different parameters of nation-ness and citizenship underlying the Belgian population censuses. Three different items have been connected with the nation state as such in the Belgian censuses: language, place of birth and nationality. The chapter shows how language has become the source of relatively strong social and cultural cleavages within the Belgian nation state - as exemplified by the well-known tensions between its different linguistic communities in the second half of the twentieth century. It analyses the ways in which data about each individual's birthplace and nationality were collected and processed. These analyses also show how imaginaries of national identity correspond with changing state-istical interests in managing and controlling migration in a world characterized by increasing transnational mobility. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the historical and contemporary relevance of author's analysis of parameters of nation-ness and citizenship for the project of nation-building and imagining the nation state within Belgium.