Who Feels at Home? Whiteness and the Politics of Belonging in the Flemish Soap Opera Thuis

ABSTRACT

Despite concerted efforts to move towards an inclusive, hybrid and intercultural identity, discourses about “Flemishness” today tend to be dominated by “adaptation” and an “Us-Them” ideology. Within these discourses race remains largely unnamed and—instead of skin colour—notions of citizenship, national identity, Western superiority and civilisation are referenced when it comes to belonging. However—despite this reluctance to reference race—whiteness as a dominant construct is central to “Flemishness” and, consequently, to the politics of belonging in Flanders. This article contends that whiteness as a position of privilege is constructed and perpetuated through symbolic forms of expression in the media with a particular focus on the Public Service Broadcasting soap opera Thuis. By using a Critical Whiteness Studies approach, and focusing on the nature of the community and setting, the importance of language and the treatment of diversity, this article critically reflects the ways in which whiteness manifests as a hegemonic ideology in season 17 of Thuis’s representation of “Flemishness.” Thuis is viewed as a microcosm representative of the Flemish lifestyle and is consequently interpreted as providing valuable insights regarding the centrality of whiteness as part of a “pristine Flemish cultural identity.”

Keywords:

• Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS)
• Flanders
• Flemishness
• politics of belonging
• soap opera
• Thuis
• whiteness