The Congolese diaspora in Brussels and hybrid identity formation: multi-scalarity and diasporic citizenship

Matonge–Ixelles. Porte de Namur! Porte de l'Amour?

J'ai sillonné le monde entier, jamais je n'ai vu une ville comme Bruxelles et un quartier comme Matonge d'Ixelles o[ugrave] tout le monde se mêle (plus de 100 nationalités dans ce seul quartier).

Difficile de décrire en un mot ce qu'est Matonge – Bruxelles ou Bruxelles elle-même.

Bruxelles era ville mythique

Bruxelles era lola (paradis) ¹

Matonge–Ixelles. Gate of Namur! Gate of Love?

I have travelled around the world, never have I seen a city like Brussels and a quarter like Matonge in Ixelles where everybody gets involved (over 100 nationalities in this neigbourhood alone).

Difficult to describe in one word what Matonge is – Brussels or Brussels itself.

Brussels is a mythical city

Brussels is paradise

In recent years, considerable attention has been paid to the rise of transnational communities in European cities. The interplay of economic globalisation, accelerating immigration, and transnational network formation have transformed the socio-cultural mix of Europe's larger cities, resulting in the emergence of ethnically highly diversified, multicultural, and cosmopolitan, or what Leonie Sandercock calls ‘mongrel’, cities (Sandercock 2003). This contribution aims to elucidate the relationship between new forms of emergent ‘mongrel’ urbanities on the one hand and transnational ‘hybrid’ identity formation among diaspora communities through the formation of multi-scalar spatial networks and arrangements on the other. We shall argue that these hybrid formations are constructed through, etched in, and expressed by the formation of particular urban socio-cultural and socio-economic environments that function as specific and concrete local anchoring points for multi-scalar identity formation.

As Nina Glick Schiller and Ayse Çaglar (2009) argue, transnational identity formation, urban transformations, globalisation and scale restructuring are deeply implicated in and operate through particular urban locales (see also Herb and Kaplan 1999, Glick Schiller et al. 2006, Çaglar 2006, 2007). We wish to take seriously their call to problematise mainstream research on transnationalism and migration, with its implicit ‘national’ bias (usually formulated in terms of the oppositional twin between either assimilation to a presumably given ‘national’ culture on the one hand or insertion in a multicultural and apparently tolerant host nation on the other). Instead, we focus on the local urban expression of scaled transnational network activities and the associated formation of a distinct multi-scalar hybrid identity that is neither assimilationist nor multicultural, but expresses a unique hybrid form. This, in turn, allows us to cast a new perspective on the process of globalisation from below on the one hand and the remaking of identity on the other.

More importantly, in a context of growing transnational multi-scaled identity formation in European cities, such an approach demands that we take seriously the question of what constitutes urban citizenship in a post-national world of deterritorialised, or rather multi-scalar, identities. Moreover, the city itself is rescaling in important ways, and this is particularly clear in Brussels (see Baeten and Swyngedouw 2001, Swyngedouw and Kaika 2003). The federal implosion of Belgium, the political fragmentation of Brussels, the Europeanisation of the city, its accelerating differentiation and the emergence of a ‘glocal’ urban ‘gestalt’ is closely related to the newly emerging forms of transnational identity formation and their local-spatial expression as embodied in and performed through the everyday urban life of local transnational communities.

Our focus is on a particular and largely ignored ethnic group in Belgium, namely the Congolese diasporic ‘community’. Its particular atypical history of migration and the presence of a large number of residents of Congolese origin in Brussels bring out a series of processes of hybrid identity formation that are underrepresented in the literature on European urban transnational immigration (which tends to focus either on migrating labour or on refugees). The Congolese diaspora, which does not fit either category well, offers a uniquely important and extraordinarily rich group who have formed a particular transnational, but locally embedded, ‘hybrid’ identity, shaped exactly by their particular histories, geographical trajectories, scaled networking, and urban embedding. Moreover, the rapid growth of a population of Congolese decent was marked by the transformation of a neighborhood in Brussels (Matonge) into a distinct, globally localised ‘African’ community, a transformation that coincided with the acceleration of globalisation. This case consequently offers a privileged insight into the making of glocalised ‘mongrel’ urbanities.

Figure 1 (as well as its caption) shows a mural (now removed to make way for an urban renovation project) by renowned Congolese artist Chéri Samba that for many years adorned one of the main streets leading into Matonge, the largely Congolese neighbourhood on the eastern fringe of Brussels city centre. The mural depicts everyday life in Matonge and celebrates the cultural diversity, ethnic mixing, and expressions of identity that fuse together an eclectic mélange of styles, colours, tastes, and activities. Matonge has a strong symbolic significance and attracts African (and not just Congolese) people from all over the world. It offers a kaleidoscopic view of ‘glocalised’ urban life, one that suggests that identities are continuously refashioned, disassembled and reassembled, a process in which the geographical scales of social networking are of key importance.

Figure 1 Matonge-Ixelles. Porte de Namur, Porte de l'Amour?

This contribution seeks, first, to undertake the archaeology of family, political, economic and socio-cultural networks among the Belgian-Congolese diaspora, and their spatial ‘scaling’ with an eye towards excavating the processes through which urban hybrid identity formation is forged and structured. We maintain that it is the overlay of various articulated transnational networks in which ‘local’ residents are embedded that are productive of new ‘mongrel’ or ‘hybrid’ identities. These new forms of hybrid identity formation shape the conditions of urban life in Europe and produce the contours for new forms of ‘cosmopolitan’ citizenship that transcend older and often nation-centered forms of identity formation. It facilitates thinking through again how the urban experience is precisely one that is conditioned by the continuous rekindling of identities. This ‘local’ embedding will be the theme of the second part of the paper.

We shall conclude that this new form of urbanity has profound implications on both the conceptualisation of (urban) citizenship and the democratic content of city life, particularly as it will become evident that the ‘national’ scale is perhaps no longer the privileged scale through which urban citizenship of the ‘mongrel’ variety should be institutionalised. We argue that this problématique requires urgent attention as European cities are rapidly rescaling and transnationalising. However, before we embark on this, we explore briefly the historical-geographical dynamics of Congolese migration to Belgium and offer some pointers to conceptualising scaled hybrid identity formation.

The Congolese diaspora in Belgium: an atypical case

In most of the literature on transnational communities and urban identity formation, emphasis is placed on two main processes of immigration that have shaped transnational presence. On the one hand, considerable attention has been paid to the emergence of large communities of migrating people who were positively attracted, if not encouraged to move, to fuel local labor markets (as in the case of guest workers in North-Western Europe). On the other hand, research has focused on mass migration movements through colonial and post-colonial networks (as in the case of, for example, Asian and West Indian immigration into the UK) or the legacies of the slave trade (Koser 2003). Urban transnational communities are customarily analysed from either or both of these vantage points. The Congolese diaspora in Belgium, however, does not correspond easily to these two typical cases. This atypical character (but one that will become more prevalent in a neoliberal and post-national world), however, has important consequences and permits us to think through the formation of transnational identity stripped from the singular dominance of the search for work and income on the one hand or symbolically overcoded by a distinct post-colonial sensitivity on the other.

Of course, Congolese migration to Belgium is a product of the common colonial past too (De Clercq 2000, p. 227), although very different compared with, for example, the Commonwealth experience or the earlier slave-based African diaspora. This history began when the 1884 Berlin conference assigned ‘Congo Free State’ as the personal possession of Leopold II, then king of Belgium. During this period, the only movement of Congolese people to Belgium was exclusively for urban exhibition display (such as during the world exhibitions of 1885 and 1897) where the imported ‘exotica’ ‘performed’ live shows about ‘everyday’ life in Congo: playing tom-tom, performing traditional dance and mimicking tribal wars (Etambala 1993). A note on the fences of their compound read: ‘Do not feed the blacks, they have already been fed’. When the horrors of the king's ruthless exploitation of Congo became mediatised (and the financial cost to the king of maintaining order began to outweigh profits), the international community pressurised the state to take over colonial rule (1908). Etambala (1993, p. 25) argues that from this moment, the kernel of Congolese migration to Belgium was formed. Yet it remained extremely limited. According to census data, there were 15 Congolese in Belgium in 1910, 28 in 1920, and 98 in 1930.

The colonial administration excelled in discouraging and controlling migration. During the colonial period, migration to Belgium was extremely limited. Officially, there was no migration. The few Belgian residents of Congolese dissent were students or the occasional rare visitor (Kagné 2001, p. 6). When in the post-war period the ‘guest workers’ schemes tried to attract southern European, Turkish or Moroccan workers to Belgium, the colony was not used as a labour reserve for Belgium's industry. There are two reasons for this. First, there was a great need for workers in Congo itself for its industrial and agricultural exploitation. The colonial elite preferred to use Congolese workers ‘locally’. Second, the political elites were concerned with the racial homogeneity of Belgium, which they feared would be undermined with Congolese immigration (Kagné 2001, p. 6).

After Congolese independence in 1960, a greater number of Congolese (Zairese after the change of name in 1971) began to reside, mostly temporarily, in Belgium. In 1970, for example, there were 5244 Zairese residents in Belgium (Kagné and Martiniello 2001, p. 9). Most of them were students, Zairese civil servants on training courses and diplomatic personnel. They were all assumed to return ‘home’ after completing their stint (Kazadi Wa Kabwe and Segatti 2003, p. 125). In addition, elite political exiles entrenched in Brussels, joining the company of businessmen and other, usually highly educated, residents (De Clercq 2000, p. 227). The emergent diaspora community became a local satellite of the centre of power in Kinshasa.

During the 1990s, then, the dynamics of Congolese immigration changed rapidly as the conditions in Congo deteriorated. The temporary colony of Congolese students and diplomats increased with the arrival of permanently residing illegal migrants, asylum seekers and labour migrants. In 2006, there were officially 26,909 Congolese citizens staying in Belgium. About half of them resided in Brussels (13,540) (Ecodata 2006). However, neither the several thousands that in the meantime had taken Belgian citizenship nor refugees, illegal migrants, or asylum seekers are included in the official data. De Bruyn and Wets (2006, p. 14) estimate that the Congolese diaspora in Belgium totals around 80,000 individuals. Congolese immigration is atypical, particularly as most migrated through personal choice and not as a result of active migration policies from the Belgian state or of special post-colonial arrangements.

The symbolic centre of the Congolese (and other sub-Saharan) communities in Belgium is the Matonge neighbourhood in Brussels. It is named after one of the most exclusive shopping and leisure districts in Kinshasa. Lingala is commonly spoken and the local experience is, according to Vincke (2000, p. 23), one that ‘seems to be perpetually on the fence between Here and There’. Although residents of African decent account for only 8% of the local population in the area, the neighbourhood remains the greatest centre of attraction for Congolese people, not only from Belgium but from all over the world. It has become a pivotal pole for conducting all manner of transactions and celebrating a wide range of activities (De Clercq 2000, p. 227). This area, therefore, functions, both symbolically and materially, as a key signifying place in the construction of Congolese diaspora identity, while shaping a new form of ‘glocal’ urbanity in Brussels.

Transnationalism, hybrid identities and place production

Increasing migration has been closely related to globalisation and the greater porosity of borders for all manner of transactions and movements. It is exactly this type of ‘networked’ cross-scalar existence that shapes everyday experiences and the formation of new ‘glocal’ identities of diaspora groups (Song 2005, p. 62). The emergence of ‘transnationalism’ and transnational identities that are no longer structured through national embedding but through post-national conditions are increasingly the defining transnational experience. Daily life is constructed trough a dialectical interaction between the global and the local (Giddens 1991), mediated by all manner of scalar networks (Swyngedouw 2004) that form a complex transnational arrangement (see also Castells 1996, 1997), but one that becomes etched in the configuration of particular localities.

The concept of transnationalism was introduced by Basch et al. (1994, p. 7) in Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialised Nation-States. They define ‘transnationalism’ as:

…[t]he process by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement. We call these processes transnationalism to emphasize that many immigrants today build social fields that cross geographic, cultural and political borders. Immigrants who develop and maintain multiple relationships – familial, economic, social, organizational, religious and political – that span borders we call transmigrants.

Transmigrants act, take decisions and develop identities embedded in relational networks that link two or more places at the same time. A transmigrant belongs to more than one place, region, or nation-state; he/she feels at home in the home locale, as well as in the receiving locale. However, the focus on the ‘nation’ obfuscates a series of processes of extraordinary importance that this paper wishes to address. First, while individuals and their locally embedded territorialisation may be deterritorialised through the process of transnationalisation, Deleuzian deterritorialisation is, of necessity, of course always accompanied by reterritorialisation, the reinscription of the body in a set of localised practices and scaled relationships. Second, this reterritorialisation does not obliterate the socio-spatial field associated with previous experiences. On the contrary, the socio-spatial relational field becomes rekindled through restructured geo-relational configurations. Third, a series of new local, urban, regional, national, and transnational networks or fields of social interaction are constructed through the diasporic movement. These, in turn, transform local socio-spatial conditions and produce new ‘scaled’ identities. Indeed, transnationalism and hybrid identity formation must be placed next to each other for two reasons (Vertovec 2001, p. 573). First, many transnational networks are grounded in the perception that one shares a certain form of common identity. Second, identities of certain individuals and groups are negotiated inside social worlds that span more than one place.

The centralised and closed identities of the national culture become more contested and delocalised because of expanding globalisation (Hall 1992, p. 309). Globalisation has a pluralising influence and makes identities diverse and less uniform and fixed. Likewise, Cohen (1997, p. 157) argues that social identities become deterritorialised. However, as they territorialise again in new configurations, new forms of ‘hybrid’ identity will gain importance (Pieterse 1995). An important feature of a diaspora- or transnational community is the triadic relationship between the globally dispersed ethnic group, the place of residence and the homeland (Scheffer 1986). Consequently, the hybrid identity of a migrant originates from the interplay between the sending country, the receiving country and the migrant community (Staring et al. 1997, p. 16), that is through the performative interaction of local, global and intermediary network (see Figure 2). In sum, it evolves as a result of the interaction between networks of varying, overlapping and interpenetrating geometries and spatial extent. Vertovec (1999) identifies the emergence of a ‘diasporic consciousness’. This is characterised by creolisation, one that is acutely aware of the multi-locationality of identity and often seeks out those who share the same experiences (Gilroy 1993).

Figure 2 The triadic construction of hybrid identity.

Diaspora identities are the product of interpenetrating histories and geographies. Such ‘“cultures of hybridity” [are…] defined […] by the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of “identity” which lives with and through, not despite, difference’ (Hall 1990, p. 235). These identities are not fixed, but continuously renegotiated, subjected to multiple contradictions, and transformative. In this sense, these ‘bricolaged’ identities are, according to Hall (1992, p. 310), one of the new forms of late-modern identity and a defining parameter of contemporary ‘mongrel’ cultures that increasingly define European big city life.

For the black diaspora, we can even speak about a specific ‘black’ hybrid identity. The multi-scalar construction of hybrid identity becomes indeed acutely present in Euro-black identity formation. As Paul Gilroy (1993, p. 10) attests, ‘[s]triving to be both European and Black requires some form of double consciousness’. As will be shown below, however, there are a number of other spatial relationalities that are performative in the hybrid formation of Euro-black identity. As Stuart Hall argued, ‘black’ identity fuses together two performative processes (Hall 1990, p. 223). First, ‘black’ cultural identity can be seen as a part-unity, a shared culture, sutured by the collective black experience, resulting from a shared history of slavery, colonial domination and anti-colonial struggle. The idea of white exclusivity promoted a determined black diaspora and guaranteed its existence (Segal 1998, p. 8), a process that also provided the ferment for a pan-African movement. Despite the efforts to offer a singular content to ‘black’ identity, it remains (as is the case with others) caught within a multitude of socio-spatial formations.

This brings the argument to the second ‘moment’ of ‘black’ identity formation. As cultural identity is never fixed and subject to continuous transformation, i.e. identity is a process of ‘becoming as well as being’ (Hall 1990, p. 225), it is continuously caught in and between cultures, histories, spatialities, and power. It is only from this second perspective that we can observe the traumatic kernel of colonisation. The way in which Blacks were seen and positioned within dominant registers of representation not only resulted in Whites seeing Blacks as radically ‘Other’, but, equally important, that Blacks began to see themselves as such. This is the vital insight offered by Frantz Fanon (1967) in Black Skin, White Masks. This double procedure of dispossession produced beings without anchor, horizon, color, or state. Black cultural identity, from a non-essentialised perspective, results from the conflicting and dialectical dialogue between these two axes. While the first axis refers to continuity and equality and is grounded in past shared experience, the second refers to the differentiations in the present. ‘Black’ culture is thus created through the diverse and contradictory histories and geographies that gave rise to the different African diasporas (Gilroy 1987, p. 296).

Stuart Hall (1990) offers a key opening to understanding this process of hybridisation. Caribbean identity, for him, needs to be thought through three ‘presences’. First, there is the African presence that signifies the terrain of repression and of an unacknowledged presence; second, there is the European presence, symbol of exclusion and domination. And finally, there is the American presence, the place where this syncretism is negotiated. We maintain that, for the Congolese diaspora in Belgium, the first two presences need to be complemented by a multiplicity of other locales and spatialities. Black identity, articulated through local, regional and national connectivities with ‘Congolese’ places, is inserted both in the particular histories of the Belgo-Congolese history and, more importantly, renegotiated through a globalising Europe (Balibar 2004). The self becomes associated with heterogeneity, multiplicity and difference/differance (Schrag 1997, p. 8).

The relevance of this scalar reading, although stripped of its socio-cultural spatial specificities, is already hinted at by Tajfel and Turner (1986), who maintain that identity is forged through the interlacing of increasingly broader circles or networks of group membership and (be-)longing. We argue that the Congolese diaspora's hybridised identity is wrought through transnational, national, regional, and local scalar conceptualisations and practices of home and ethnicity through which affinities with home communities can be maintained and nurtured (see Herb and Kaplan 1999, Brinkerhoff 2005, p. 28,), while simultaneously fusing local, national and transnational associations structured by the insertion into the host location. A hybrid identity emerges as a result of the articulation of multiple and constructed elements: Black, African, European, Belgian, Congolese, urban, ….; a multi-scalar one that already prefigures the dawn of a deterritorialised urban being. A summary is provided in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Hybrid identity of the Congolese diaspora: a scaled construction.

It is exactly this multi-scalarity and its expression within the formation of ‘mongrel’ urban neighbourhoods that our empirical work explored. This process becomes, as it were, the parallel dynamics of a rescaling city (Baeten and Swyngedouw 2001). And this is what we shall turn to next.

Ways of being: mapping the Congolese transnational field

I would like to have a dual nationality because I will always be shared between two cultures. (Louise)

The research is based on the triangulation of three methods of data collection: ² in-depth life history interviews (12 men and 8 women) with first-generation immigrants from Congo, participant observation, and document analysis. The interviewees were contacted through a snowballing procedure that started with three local Congolese organisations, a socio-cultural organisation, a community centre and a civil society association in Matonge. In the remainder of this paper, quotes from the interviews will be identified by the first name of the respondent. These interviews were complemented by participant observation in a series of varied social, cultural, and political events of the Congolese community and through a range of activities in Matonge, conducted in the period between April 2006 and March 2007. Discourse analysis of websites, folders, brochures from different Congolese and Congo-Belgian civil society associations and movements completed the information collection. The research design and the analysis are qualitative and focused on mapping and identifying the socio-spatial configurations through which diaspora identity is constructed and articulated.

Table 1 summarises the local embedding of interviewees and suggests that most (with the exception of students Loris and François) have a relatively long-term presence in Belgium and show a variety of characteristics that suggest a strong association with their local social environment and are, for many in a variety of ways, active in a range of local networks and activities.

Table 1. Local embedding of interviewees

	Residing in Belgium for ≥ 10 years	Friends of native Belgian origin	Member of one or more socio- cultural organizations of Belgian origin	Belgian nationality	Professional activity/student
François					✓
Billy	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Antoine	✓	✓		✓	✓
Nzema	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Louise	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Mulume	✓			✓	✓
Mweze	✓	✓			✓
Hélène	✓			✓	✓
Karol				✓	✓
Godelieve	✓	✓		✓	✓
Steve			✓		✓
Lambert		✓			✓
Mi-Jeanne	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Justin			✓		✓
Loris					✓
Nadia	✓	✓		✓	✓
Sandrine	✓	✓		✓	✓
Marie-Louise	✓	✓		✓	✓
Erik	✓			✓
Olivier	✓			✓

This local embedding, in turn, is articulated with a range of transnational activities that link individuals with one or more other places. We mapped the Congolese transnational socio-spatial field according to the classification of Itzigsohn et al. (1999, p. 324) and Portes et al. (1999, p. 222). The latter distinguish between economic, political and socio-cultural transnational relations, to which we added the spatial networking engendered through family relations. In line with Itzigsohn et al. (1999), we differentiate between narrow and broad transnationality. Narrow transnational practices comprise activities with a high degree of institutionalisation, with constant participation and regular movement. Broad transnational practices refer to activities with a lower degree of institutionalisation, occasional participation and sporadic movement between the two countries.

Table 2 details the geographies of family relations. It suggests that most respondents maintain a wide and rhizomatic set of family relations that span a variety of places. Regular contact is maintained and mutual visits are part of mechanisms through which these translocal kinship connectivities are reproduced and nurtured.

Table 2. The spatiality of family networks

Name of respondent	Places of family relations
Mi-Jeanne	Congo, Belgium, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands
Antoine	Congo
Nzema	Congo, Belgium, USA, Canada, South Africa
Billy	Congo, Belgium, USA
Hélène	Congo
Lambert	Congo, USA
Francois	Congo
Karol	Congo, Belgium. UK, France
Justin	Congo, Belgium, South Africa
Loris	Congo, Europe, USA, South Africa
Steve	Congo, Belgium, Canada
Olivier	Congo, Belgium, France, South Africa
Godelieve	Congo, Belgium
Nadia	Congo, Belgium, USA, Switzerland
Sandrine	Congo, Belgium, Angola, UK, France, Germany
Marie-Louise	Congo, Belgium
Eric	Congo, Belgium, USA, France, Angola
Mweze	Congo, Belgium, USA, UK, France, South Africa, Kenya
Louise	Congo, Belgium, USA, Canada, Italy

Mi-Jeanne summarised the multi-locational family connectivities and their importance as follows:

A part of my family is also in Belgium and the others a bit across the world. But we are always in contact, eh, we are still in regular contact […] There are others who are in Canada, the USA, Germany, France, Italy, Holland, so a bit everywhere. […] We see each other regularly. We see each other, we are in contact by telephone,… so they also spend their holidays here, such as me, I can go too.

Table 3 summarises the heterogeneous and varied range of overlapping and interpenetrating economic, political and socio-cultural activities that are organised through a series of widely cast socio-spatial relations. All respondents reported several of these activities as part of their daily activities. It suggests the existence of a vibrant and active transnational community, one that is particularly thriving through family, political and socio-cultural activities. There is less sustained involvement in transnational economic activities, primarily because of the unstable economic and political situation in Congo. However, there are informal trading activities present within the Congolese community that centre around the Matonge area in Brussels. These ‘ways of Being’ transnational provide the backdrop to the analysis of the ‘ways of Belonging’ that we turn to in the next section.

Table 3. Ways of being: transnational activities of the Congolese diaspora community

Sector
Economic	Political	Socio-cultural
Trans-national activities
Broad
Informal bi- or transnational traders, transport and sale/exchange of merchandise from occasional trips to Congo Pakistani traders in Matonge, often of Congolese descent selling African products Remittances from Congolese migrants to friends and family Development organisation in Belgium investing in development projects in Congo	Participation in electoral meetings, marches, and events Action committees in relation to specific regions, places, and/or activities in Congo Fundraising for home country electoral candidates Home-town civic committees created by immigrants; membership of town committees Alliances of immigrant committees with home-country political associations Participation in voluntary and charity events to support activities in Congo	Amateur bi- or multinational sport matches Congolese folk and other music bands, theatre companies and the like performing in Brussels Priests from Congo visit and organize their parishioners in Belgium Self-definition and identification with and as a part of the Congolese diaspora All manner of religious activities and meetings that relate to home religious activities
Narrow
Belgo-Congolese transnational companies like MePharTech Investments from Congolese migrants in Congolese micro-enterprises Tourist, travel and money transfer businesses	Political activism (particularly related to l'UDPS en APARECO) in Belgium No official dual nationality is granted by Congolese government. Yet there are several known cases of dual nationality Congolese immigrants who stood as candidate in the Congolese elections Consular officials and representatives of national political parties in Belgium	Exhibitions in Belgium of Congolese art and artists Major Congolese artists perform in Brussels, Liège and other major cities Congolese immigrants contribute to the cultural production and distribution of Congolese art Participation in Congolese cultural production from and in Belgium

Ways of belonging: hybridism and multi-scalar identity

Sans pièces d'identités

Il n'y a plus d'identité

Les pièces d'identités

C'est la sécurité ³

Without pieces of identity (identity documents)

There is no more identity

Pieces of identity (identity documents)

That is security

While the ‘Ways of Being’ explored above refer to the actual transnational socio-spatial relations and practices in which individuals are engaged, ‘Ways of Belonging’ emphasise the practices that are related to identity formation and enact a connection with specific groups, places, and activities (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004, p. 1010; Glick Schiller 2004). Despite significant differences between individuals, usually related to different life trajectories, different time-space routines and histories of movement, and differential densities of local embedding in Belgium, Congo, and/or elsewhere, there are clear indications of the formation of a hybridised identity, signalling a sense of belonging, of feeling at home, in two or more places (Hall 1992, p. 310). Several respondents, when asked about their ‘national’ cultural identification, indicated explicitly a sense of possessing a multiple identity, nurtured through their transnational existence, expressed in their everyday life, and often positively embracing the fusions of identity forged through transnational networks. Table 4 summarises some of the most salient statements that suggest a consciousness of and ability to articulate this hybrid condition.

Table 4. Performing and performative hybrid identities

I define myself as hybrid (métissé) Belgian-Congolese, as a hybrid of the North and the South. […] I consider myself to be as much Belgian as Congolese. So my pleasure, my little happiness to me would be that I can go as easily to Congo and live there and to come to Belgium and live in Belgium (Nzema).

I have the two cultures, I feel good in there (Billy).

I consider myself to be a perfect cultural hybrid (un hybride culturel). So, I carry with me, in a balanced way, the positive values of my home country as well as the positive values from here. And I am doing very well in there […] I, I feel … I really feel I am a cultural hybrid. I feel equally fine both here and in Congo (Héléne).

I don't know, I think I must be a mixed one (un mixte) of all this, because when I return to Congo, they do not find me quite Congolese anymore. So, that's the influence, it is clear that my identity changes. I consider myself a combination (un mixte) of everything (Louise).

I am proud to be a Congolese and I am proud to be Belgian, there where I am. […] I am proud of both. I can not favour one and despise the other, no. Since the other … When I am in Belgium, I am proud to be Belgian and I contribute to everything that happens in my country. When I am in Congo, I am proud to be Congolese, I am involved in what happens. So I belong to two communities, I am proud of the two communities (Mulume).

So, for now, I still can not deny my origins, therefore I am Congolese, thus Belgian of Congolese origin. Because there I still have roots, here is my host country. So I feel good in both countries, eh, these are my two countries, the country of origin and the host country, I feel good, like a fish in water, both in Belgium as over there (Mi-Jeanne).

I am a little bit of everything. I am a little bit of everything, but my father is not a little bit of everything, if you understand. My mother is not a little bit of everything. But me, I am a little bit of everything (François).

I consider myself as Congolese, I am really Congolese, but it is expected to be receptive to the world […]. We are always open to the world. […] I can always find values in Belgium and I hold on to them. That, I find good (Lambert).

I am ‘mestizo’, mulatto. So, you see, I have the two, I have both, and that's an asset. And I try to take the best of Bel … Belgians, of Europe and the best of Africa. So, trying to have both and that is great wealth (Marie-Louise).

Fifty-fifty. I'm really Congolese and Belgian. I am Belgian, I always dress European, as a Belgian. I study here, I speak Dutch like everyone else. I go to the school here like everyone else. I also think in European way. But Congolese, I like to dance, I like dancing Congolese dance. I like listening to Congolese music. So fifty-fifty, I am Congolese and Belgian too (Sandrine).

Me, I am not 100% Congolese, not 100% Belgian, really half-half (Godelieve).

Rather a Congolese-Belgian identity. First Congolese. A Belgian … to a very small extent, yes. Why so? Because I've learned to live as an ordinary Belgian. In my life, I can do all things that a Belgian citizen can do. So for me, Belgium is also important (Karol).

The interaction between transnational and local networking expressed in everyday ways of being of the Congolese diaspora in Brussels has a performative effect on identity formation. There is a clear identification of at least an emerging, and with others a well-established, hybrid identity. All respondents mobilise and interiorise to a greater or lesser extent elements from both Belgian and Congolese society and culture in their identification process ‘who they are’. There is clearly a double consciousness in Gilroy's sense of the word (Gilroy 1993, p. 10). This ‘double’ consciousness is of course not equally strongly present among respondents. Those who are less well embedded in the locality emphasise their ‘Congolese’ side. The regularity and frequency of transnational contacts influence and shape the formation of ‘creole’ identities. Not surprisingly, the more intense the ‘glocal’ connections, the greater the sense of belonging both to ‘Belgium’ and ‘Congo’.

However, the key argument advanced in this paper is how this ‘creole’ identity is constructed through the articulation of scaled senses of belonging that produce a multi-layered and complex glocal–local gestalt. In what follows, we shall systematically discuss a series of scalar forms of identity-forming affinities. Of course, there is a variable ‘geometry’ in the role and importance of each of these spatial scales, but they are systematically present among most of the respondents. First, we discuss the pan-African or Black identity. Both concepts are used as synonymous, because respondents used them interchangeably. Second, the specific ‘national’ Congolese condition is discussed. We then consider the ‘local’ affinities, both in Congo and in Belgium. Next, the Belgian part of the ‘self’ will be examined. Finally, we verify the existence of a cosmopolitan identity as part of their singularity.

In this sense, identities are not structured purely transnationally or trans-locally, but they are also multi-layered in the way that different geographical scales (Congo, Africa, Brussels, Belgium, Europe) are horizontally interwoven. Moreover, this multi-scalar construction is not fixed but always subject to change (Hall 1992) as time–space matrices and networks change. This ‘scalarity’ is not hierarchical, but nested, in the sense that ‘higher’ scales are not necessarily more important than ‘lower’ ones. Olivier clarifies this process:

I will say, yes, that's perhaps slightly exaggerated, but it still comes down to the fact that before ′98, the first time that I went back, I was white, in the sense that my identity or my way of acting was not significantly different from the people I grew up with in Belgium, so whites. And that from ′98, there has been a certain rebirth, I will not say that my… that I am changed from one day to the next. But I became more interested in Congo, read more, even after a time, I looked up more people of Congolese origin, became proficient in the language again and stuff, so I really do … Let us say, when I lived in Congo, I was a bit of a mix between white and black because I had white acquaintances as well as my African family when I grew up. I lost my black side when I came here and I've recovered this somewhat from ′98 onwards, systematically. That's why, after a while, I started searching for the balance between the Congolese culture, things that I felt were good and I wanted to take, and the Belgian culture from which I did not want throw everything away. And so I had to reconstruct my identity somewhat, so a mix of the two. […] In that respect, I constructed my own identity somewhat.

Nzema also alludes to this process of change, transformation and hybrid identity formation:

Listen, I would say I am a hybrid of all this, I consider myself as a hybrid of everything. I am… I think that a reform happened slowly during these 29 years. It means that my mind has evolved towards other things, I think. I can sometimes feel very far removed from the Congolese, as well as far removed from the Belgians.

Identity is therefore never finalised or fixed; it is continuously reworked and transformed. This variability opens up all manner of analytical difficulties to gauge the impact of various scales of belonging. Yet, in what follows, we attempt to chart the scalar contours of this process of hybrid identity formation.

The pan-African or Black identity

Each respondent (with the exception of François with whom this theme was not discussed), considers him- or herself to be African and, as a consequence of their skin colour, they regard themselves implicitly or explicitly as part of the ‘Black’ movement. A pan-African or black identity has its origins in the experience of the past, and more particularly in the collective experience of the European colonisation of Africa. This idea of pan-African identity is also often associated with – and is nurtured by – the common experience of the anti-colonial struggles for independence conducted with the aim of the formation of a postcolonial society (Hall 1990, p. 223). They see themselves as One; and being ‘black’ as the external feature in the struggle against oppression:

It is, in fact, to the extent that we share the same destiny and the same history that has first of all been a history of exploitation and primarily of underdevelopment. […] We have seen everything interrupt, we have seen the destruction of the culture, the imposition of things that were not fully understood. So I feel very connected in Africa with the pan-African community. And the struggle that we are fighting together, that is the battle to get out of this; here too I feel very strongly in solidarity with them. […] The fight will organize until one day, we ourselves will be able to imagine the means to find interesting formulas to get out of our material poverty. An important point, and it is for that reason that I feel cemented to the pan-African community, starting from this ideal there. (Antoine)

Also in the West, Africans are often seen as the same. In the dominant regimes of representation during the colonial era, blacks were often staged as the homogenised ‘Other’. Still today, Africans are regularly represented as singular presence (Hall 1990, p. 227). Black identity does not mean that black people are culturally, ethnically, linguistically or physically homogenous, but rather signifies that the dominant culture treats them as such. In other words, the appropriation of a black identity is based on the Africanising conceptualisation by the dominant Western culture, a process that, in turn, is reappropriated in the formation of pan-Africanism and a pan-African identity. Several persons have indicated this. The film director, Mweze Ngangura, for example, expresses this as follows:

So I think that firstly, the gaze of the Other locks you in … It is that the Other assumes that you are, there is also sometimes the need for self-awareness that has elements from the past and then I think that what is strong in all that is racial; it is not something we decide. We may decide to be baptized, we can decide to be Catholic or Protestant or Muslim, but you cannot decide: I'm going to be black or I will be yellow, or I'll be … that comes, that is. And therefore we must take that into account. And I think that it … is perhaps one of the strongest elements of identity, because it is what you cannot change. […] I think there is something that does not change: it is racial affiliation.

Godelieve, a woman with a Belgian father and a Congolese mother, concurs with this:

Ethnic origin is important also because of the colour you have. Even if I have a Belgian surname. When people see me they do not see me as (provides Belgian surname + Congolese first name). They see me as an African. […] And this is therefore important. Finally, it's really the gaze of others… which also made me to be what I am. It's not that I was asked for my opinion, that it is me who has chosen. But because you see it each time in the gaze of people […] that the people see me as a migrant woman, as an African woman, as a woman of foreign origin.

Justin also insists that Belgians never ‘see’ him as Belgian, but in the first instance as an African:

I do not know if you would call me a Belgian citizen [if you see me] on the street, even though I have a Belgian identity card. That will not happen. If you see me on the street you would call me an African in general. And if you know me, you would ask me: where exactly do you come from?

All respondents, irrespective of their descent, agree that they are seen by the outside world as African, as not originating from Europe, as the ‘Other’. Through the gaze of the others, they are continuously reminded that they are black. This reverse identification is performative with respect to identity construction and perception. Their skin colour is therefore a part of their identity. This blackness can be perceived negatively in manifestations of racism as well as positively when being (or becoming) a proud carrier of the African identity. This is powerfully attested to by Olivier who testifies to the negative experiences that being ‘black’ brought and how that, in turn, has shaped his identity:

And I also think that my Congolese identity is formed in part by that racism. […] But that is, I think, if someone else… a particular group identifies you with a particular colour, even if you think yourself that you are not really different, you automatically go searching for the aspect with which they identify you. […] If you are rejected by a society, you automatically go searching for a society where you belong. […] So in that sense, I think that racism has shaped my identity.

Billy affirms the positive aspects of this racialised gazing whereby ‘others’ put ‘black’ migrants in the same category. This homogenising process becomes a means through which to bundle communal forces in the construction of a pan-African movement.

I understand that we are the same for people. Therefore, I said to myself: this is a strength, it must be a force; it must be a force for change.

Yet it is clear that within that unity of African culture, many differences prevail. Indeed, they share a similar (colonial) past, but African societies and cultures experienced highly diverse historical-geographical trajectories and cultural characteristics. Identity is after all the object of transformation as a result of differences in history, culture and personal trajectory (Hall 1990, p. 226). Congolese have come to recognise that they are part of the black community, yet identify themselves as mainly Congolese within that community, despite the fact that ‘Congo’ and ‘Congolese’ were of course recent and decidedly colonial inventions. These differences within the pan-African community are real and are repeatedly emphasised:

The African does not exist, no, he doesn't exist. All West Africa … When I see Malians and others. Even so different. They are different, in fact. (François).

This difference is affirmed by the respondents in their proud endorsement of their Congolese origin.

The Congolese identity

Every respondent in this research feels, without exception, Congolese. They carry their Congolese origin with pride in Belgium. Loris is very explicit in this respect:

Being Congolese is doing ‘the good’, that's the definition of being Congolese. They also do evil, that is obvious, but the Congolese have really pushed to do good. […] Of course, I am more than proud to be Congolese. If God would recommence the world, I would ask him to be always Congolese.

Many look back to Congo with a certain melancholy. A recurrent theme is the fact that they miss the human warmth in Belgium. There is a social distance and interpersonal coldness. Lambert says the following about this:

So, it's just this lack of enthusiasm in human relations, that's really … Belgium has a lot of work. It is a cultural problem too. Belgium has much to learn from Africa to this point, the warmth of human relations.

Yet, they equally recognise that there are still many problems in Congo, both economically and politically:

It is first of all the leaders we had until today who think only about themselves and do not think about the general interest. […] There is no goodwill to do things. That's really a negative side. (Steve)

‘Congolese-ness’ as a ‘way of Belonging’ constitutes an important part of the identity of the Congolese migrant. They are connected to and involved in their country at the political, economical and socio-cultural level (as shown also in Table 3). They remain committed to their homeland because they feel Congolese, and meanwhile they feel Congolese because they have lasting relations with Congo. It also must not be forgotten that ‘Congo’ itself is obviously a pronounced colonial construction and that a ‘national’ unit was created on the basis of very diverse and heterogeneous regional identities.

The regional (Congolese) identity

This type of identity formation is especially important for those respondents who sustain regular transnational networks with their home region. Interviewees who have frequent contact with their country are more aware of what is happening in their native region than persons who seek contact less often. Some refer explicitly to their native region when they present themselves, and often strive for a better life in that region. Pastor Mulume and his wife both come from Kasaï. When asked what language he speaks with his family, he responded the following:

It is in my native language Tshiluba. We speak it in Kasaï only. It is like the Flemish, but Flemish, they speak it in Holland; they speak it in South Africa. But Tshiluba from Kasaï, they speak it nowhere in Africa, only another … two major regions: the eastern region of Kasaï and the western region of Kasaï. Those who speak Tshiluba reside in the centre of the country.

Billy too is proud of his native region of Katanga, now called Shaba. This is the richest region of Congo. According to him, the number of students that came from Kinshasa – in 1978 – was not in accordance with the Congolese reality. Many were children of politicians, while the rest of Congo was blocked. He rarely encountered a student from his region. Many Congolese in Belgium had been together in the same classroom in Congo. Billy has been a critic of this, and for a long time he could no longer return to Congo.

The urban identity

Congolese people were interviewed in two cities, namely Brussels and Leuven. Not everyone feels equally involved in their ‘home’ city. A Leuven or Brussels identity is particularly prevalent with respondents who exhibit a strong local embedding. For example, Sandrine goes to school in Leuven and says the following about the city:

I have everything here, I have friends. The city of Leuven, I've grown up here, I know here … Leuven, and I know Leuven by heart. […] Yes, I just have everything here.

Godelieve – who lives in Ixelles, the district of Brussels where Matonge is located – also considers Ixelles as a part of her identity:

[…] I feel Ixelloise, I live in Ixelles, my children are in school here, I work here, I pay my bills here [laughs]. So I like Ixelles.

The respondents who feel connected with their city, are without exception also involved in the wider Belgian society.

The Belgian identity

Three-quarters of the respondents have a certain affinity with Belgium. Only Lambert, François, Justin, Loris and Steve feel no or only a limited connection with the Belgian – and by extension European – society. They maintain relatively few local contacts. All follow Belgian news and know the country well. Mi-Jeanne gave evidence of this:

Belgium, that is my home country, I know all four corners. […] So I know. I know everything, every corner, I know, even small concealed corners, I know. So I know the history of Belgium, I know, so… the numbers of hotels, the numbers … so I know my country, it is my receiving country. I know it very very well.

‘Being Belgian’ is partly the result of the gaze of the ‘Other’. But this is ‘the Other’ in the shape of the Congolese who continued to live in Congo itself:

Yes, it is clear. In Congo, they find that I am very Westernized. This is the message that they tell me. And I think this has partly to do with having lived here for many years, studied and worked here; that is something that influenced me, that has transformed me. I do not take that into account, but they are aware of it immediately. (Louise)

The Congolese in Congo consider the Congolese migrant as Westernised, as someone who has acquired the Belgian values. This has an effect on the identity formation of the migrant: he/she begins to regard him/herself more and more as a Belgian.

Cosmopolitan identity

A large number of respondents are not concerned with Europe (as is in fact the case for many other Belgians). The theme is mentioned only by respondents who aspire to a political career. However, a number of respondents indicated that they belong to a larger entity; they see themselves as a world citizen or cosmopolitan. They believe that in times of globalisation, they must be open to the world. They feel at home in many places, as is the case with Antoine:

I do not have any complexes when I go to Portugal or Sweden. I feel at home everywhere [laughs]. […] I still feel a citizen of many places, and I believe that today's world it is like that.

Steve concurs with this sentiment:

I am Congolese, yes, but I do not consider myself only as Congolese. I consider myself as a man of the world, as someone who was born on earth. And for me the USA, Congo, everywhere, that is my country.

Multi-scalar identity: a summary

The above analysis suggests how identity is a scaled process, whereby the interlacing of different geographical configurations produces particular attachments, each of which is, in turn, performative in the construction of one's sense of belonging. A summary of such spatially articulated hybridity is provided in Table 5. These forms, feelings, and affects of belonging become expressed and actually lived within specific urban environments, in this case the Matonge neighbourhood in Brussels. The scaling of the city alluded to in the introduction is indeed paralleled by the scaling of identity. Such multi-scalar identity construction raises serious issues with respect to citizenship and the political construction of what constitutes the cosmopolitan polis. This is the theme to which we shall return in the conclusion.

Table 5. Scalar construction of identity to the respondents

	Home country (Congo)			Host country (Belgium)
	Black pan-African	Congolese	Regional	Brussels/Leuven	Belgian	European	Cosmopolitan
Mi-Jeanne	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓		✓
Antoine	✓	✓		✓	✓		✓
Nzema	✓	✓			✓	✓	✓
Billy	✓	✓	✓		✓		✓
Hélène	✓	✓	✓		✓
Mulume	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓		✓
Louise	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Mweze	✓	✓					✓
Lambert	✓	✓	✓				✓
François		✓	✓
Justin	✓	✓	✓
Loris	✓	✓	✓				✓
Steve	✓	✓	✓				✓
Godelieve	✓	✓		✓	✓	✓
Nadia	✓	✓		✓	✓
Sandrine	✓	✓		✓	✓
Marie-Louise	✓	✓			✓	✓	✓
Olivier	✓	✓			✓		✓
Erik	✓	✓			✓
Karol	✓	✓			✓

It all comes together in Matonge

The Matonge district is known to all respondents. They are familiar with it and know the area very well. The district is not only known to the Congolese diaspora in Belgium, but also to persons of Congolese origin anywhere in the world. The area emerged in the 1950s, first around the presence of a number of colonial institutions and later as a meeting-place for high-ranking officials of the Mobutu regime, former Belgian colonialists, and the Belgian and Congolese security services. At the same time, more African residents in Brussels started to live around the ‘House of the Colonies’ in Ixelles (De Corte 2000, p. 221). The first Congolese nightclub, ‘Le Mambo’, opened in the area (Corijn et al. 2003, p. 51). After the independence of Congo, the number of residents increased rapidly and accommodation or other issues became more prominent.

In 1970, an African shelter, ‘La Maison Africaine’, was established (Radio Matonge 2004). This unit had, together with the nightclub, a magnetic lure and attracted more permanent African residents to the area (De Clercq 2000, p. 229). More affluent ‘Kinois’ (inhabitants of Kinshasa) arrived in the area and opened shops and other businesses in the ‘Galerie d'Ixelles’, the main local shopping arcade. The adopted name of Matonge for the area began to resonate increasingly outside the African community. Large numbers of Congolese migrants arrived during the 1980s, mainly young people but also intellectuals, musicians, and political refugees (Kazadi Wa Kabwe and Segatti 2003, p. 125). They too found their way to Matonge, followed by Rwandese, Burundese and Senegalese migrants.

Today, Matonge is a very well-established Afro-Congolese area, albeit not an exclusively African residential area ⁴ (Vincke 2000, p. 25). Altough 44% of the residents are non-Belgians, only 8% are of African decent and 1.7% Congolese (Cosmopolis–VUB 2001). Yet it is the most important pole of attraction for Congolese people from Brussels, Belgium or elsewhere (De Clercq 2000, p. 227). The area has a great symbolic power. Many, both whites and blacks, view Matonge as a real black or African neighbourhood (Vincke 2000, p. 23). Although Matonge is certainly not a ghetto but rather a multicultural melting pot (Corijn et al. 2003, p. 55), it figures as a powerful symbolic location in the life of Congolese migrants.

Four important and interrelated fields of meaning associated with the Matonge district can be identified (see Table 6). Firstly, the district is a place of cultural immersion. When people want to dwell among companions, this is the place where they wish to be. If they want to buy African food, talk with friends in Lingala, or meet with colleagues, Matonge offers such an environment. It is a place of communal consolation and permits expressing the social, cultural and other affinities associated with diasporic life. Secondly, it is also the place where all services are located to send money abroad or to organise trips. Small shops and African businesses are dotted throughout the area, and offer a range of commercial activities and other services. These economic activities provide one of the anchoring points that sustain the transnational social and commercial networks. Thirdly, Matonge offers a range of meeting places for cultural, political, religious and other civic activities. Finally, it is also a place of relaxation and leisure. Here one can buy African clothes and music or go to the Afro-hairdresser.

Table 6. Matonge: fields of meaning

You really are like in Congo, but then in Belgium (Sandrine).

The meaning of Matonge for me is a place where you can see many Africans. Because when I'm in Matonge, I sometimes don't realize that I'm actually in Belgium because I see all colours and the atmosphere is also different. […] It is sometimes for me a special atmosphere, because there are times when I remained three months or more than three in Flanders and when I'm in Matonge, I see people […]. It is really something special, because you haven't seen those people for so long. So you see something special what you don't see every day, it is like that (Justin).

Matonge is the place since colonization, since ancient times, where the Congolese have chosen to live, in that neighbourhood. That's why we have called it Matonge such as Matonge, which is in Kinshasa, the capital itself (Mulume).

I see it a bit like China Town in New York and stuff. It really has its own identity in Belgium. So it has a Congolese mentality, identity also, in the Belgian context. I mean when I go there and I hear the people talking there: Lingala, not much Swahili, so a whole lot of Lingala from Kinshasa. And yes you see how they are doing, how they are dressed, the moaning, the bringing down of the price and stuff. That is really the Congolese mentality. You always cheer up for a bit when you are going there (Erik).

Apparently, it is said that it is a Congolese commercial neighbourhood, but if you talk to local people, it is more complicated than that. That is to say, there are shops with Congolese products. Often it's the wife, married to a white husband, that has invested in the shop and it is he who owns it. There are some Congolese that run shops or that own them. There are many Pakistanis here that have lived in Congo for generations and that import Congolese products, vegetables, foufou, […]. All this they bring here […]. The majority are Pakistanis that sell food products they get from Congo and other African countries through their commercial and family networks (Antoine).

There is a distinct ‘African’ atmosphere in the district. Matonge takes a special place in the mental and emotional register of most respondents. In Matonge they can emphasise and confirm their Congolese-ness, while the neighbourhood itself is forged through scaled performative practices, the ways of ‘Being’, explored above. It is a district with its own Congo-Belgian character, the geographical sedimentation of a transnational multi-scalar identity.

Hybrid identity and multi-scalar citizenship

This paper discussed the emergence of ‘mongrel’ urbanities as the result of the formation of diaspora urban environments. The latter express a heterogeneous set of activities forged through the formation of multi-scalar spatial networks and arrangements by transmigrating actors. These transnational ‘ways of Being’ – sustained and nurtured by networked flows of people, ideas, and things – are etched in the urban milieu and are expressive and performative in terms of shaping multi-scalar ‘ways of Belonging’. We have demonstrated that this multi-scalar hybrid identity formation is particularly evident in the case of the Congolese diaspora community in the Matonge neighbourhood in Brussels. The case exemplifies the emergence and consolidation of comparable diaspora communities in many European cities. It is evident that such transnational community formation parallels processes of global but uneven integration and intensifying transnational mobility and circulation.

A plethora of research in recent years has indeed shown the rapid globalisation of the European urbanisation process and its implications in terms of changing socio-economic composition and cultural-ethnic mix. However, this contribution attempted to open up a series of new avenues of enquiry and the pressing socio-political implications these bring. First, our analysis suggests that transnational identity formation is expressed through the restructuring and production of new and particular urban locales.

Second, this production of ‘mongrel’ spaces, in turn, radically challenges the traditional view of the relationship between ethnicity, national territory and state-defined citizenship. In other words, the traditional and primarily European concept of ‘nationality’ as the basis through which political citizenship rights are granted and exercised is increasingly inoperative in the case of urban diaspora communities for whom the expression and formation of identity is a decidedly scaled process. This leads to a situation in which ‘local’ diaspora residents have little or highly uneven (depending on their ‘nationality’) political rights to co-determine politically the conditions of life in such communities.

Moreover, and thirdly, we have shown how multi-scaled and transnational ‘ways of Being’ correspond to ‘ways of Belonging’ and of identity formation that are shaped by the interlacing or articulation of a range of geographical scales in which national territoriality constitutes just one layer among many. These forms of transnational multi-scaled identity formation in European cities raise the question of what constitutes urban citizenship in a post-national world of deterritorialised, or rather multi-scalar, identities. This multi-scaled arrangement of identity also questions the continuing relevance of nationality as the basis for political citizenship rights. Indeed, the diaspora condition calls into being new demands for political citizenship that transcend the territorial notion of the state, recognise the relevance of other geographical scales of political organisation, and insist on the importance of the political rights to move, rights that are in fact already enshrined in the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights.

Fourth, while much of recent transnational migration research has focused on multiculturality, cultural citizenship and identitarian rights, our contribution argues that the geographical remit through which identities are forged are simultaneously local, regional, pluri-national, and transnational. We explicitly endeavoured to move away from the national bias in transnational analysis, whereby either national assimilationist or simple post-colonial multiculturalism constitute the axis of political analysis, both centring on maintaining the national state as the pre-eminent, if not the only, space for the regulation, enacting and policing of political rights. By doing so, this analysis opened up a new space for considering the nature of citizenship, and in particular, diaspora citizenship (see Balibar 2008).

With this paper, we wish to foreground the urgent need for decoupling – in debates over urban, national, or European citizenship – the implied relationship between a particular ethnic identity and a particular geographical territory and for recognising, as substantiated in this paper, that identities derive from multiple places and from inter-place mobilities and connectivities. Diasporic citizenship, therefore, demands thinking through a new notion of political urban citizenship, one that is not sutured exclusively by cultural or social citizenship rights. Indeed, political rights are of course defined in terms of the ‘right to the city’ (as Henri Lefebvre would have it), rights that refer to the power to co-shape the publicity of common urban life. In other words, a democratic urban right is constituted in and through the regulation of political rights and it is exactly the latter that is profoundly reworked in the case of diaspora communities.

The restricting nation-based focus for assigning political citizenship – and we hereby also enter the murky terrain of the right to move and the political problem of (il)legal migration – requires urgent re-appraisal. As the case study of the Congolese diaspora and its urban expression in Matonge shows, diaspora political citizenship cannot be properly articulated through national territorial belonging (nationalité/nationality as the basis for granting political rights). Yet the political rights of the ‘Congolese’ community (like those of any other) are defined by their ‘nationality’. Some have Belgian nationality, some have Congolese nationality; a few managed to obtain dual nationality; some are legal ‘aliens’; others are illegal immigrants (sans-papiers). This leads to a situation in which the premise of democratic politics, i.e. the principle of equality in face of the law, is fatally undermined. The political rights associated with diaspora life are truncated, uneven and unequal. This results in a non-correspondence between the multi-scalar spatiality through which everyday life is conducted and the spatialities through which political citizenship is granted, exercised, and/or policed.

The evidence of a scalar hybrid identity formation as expressed by the Congolese diaspora indeed demands a reconsideration of the very premises upon which urban citizenship is defined, articulated, and institutionalised. It certainly requires serious consideration of the need to extend political rights to residents of places (irrespective of nationality) and to guarantee the political right to move and chose residency: they are here, therefore they are from here. This problématique warrants urgent attention if we wish to take seriously the changing nature of the European city and the mounting political and socio-cultural tensions that are invariably associated with the formal recognition of political rights on the sole basis of a correspondence between ethnicity and territory.

Notes

1. Text from Matonge mural by Chéri Samba (see Figure 1).

2. For a detailed review of methodology and in-depth description of interlocutors, data collection and analysis, and interpretation, see Eva Swyngedouw (2006). All transcripts of interviews available from Eva Swyngedouw.

3. Papa Wemba, sound-track of Pièces d'identités (1998), a movie by Congolese director Mweze Dieudonné Ngangura.

4. These data were obtained from the neighbourhood database. The geographical delimitation of the Matonge neighbourhood is defined by the following streets in Ixelles: Porte de Namur, Chaussée d'Ixelles, Rue du Viaduc, Rue du Trône, and Rue du Champs de Mars.