KADOC is the Interfaculty Documentation and Research Centre on Religion, Culture and Society at KU Leuven in Belgium. In this interview, researchers Luke Dodds and Stijn Carpentier talk about their role in the MIRETAGE project, KADOC’s previous work on minority religious heritage, and what excites them most about the work ahead.
What is your name and the organisation you represent?
We are Luke Dodds and Stijn Carpentier, both researchers affiliated to KADOC-KU Leuven. Luke is preparing a PhD on Catholic Church initiatives in support of migrants' rights and welfare in postwar Belgium and Western Europe, while Stijn researches how Moroccan and Turkish labour migrants navigated civil society in Belgium since the 1960s. Beyond our research, we are involved in several heritage projects revolving around communities with a migration past.
Where is your organisation based and what does it do?
KADOC-KU Leuven is an archive for heritage on the intersection of religion, culture, and society. Our collection holds a wide variety of materials, including the archives of a wide range of Christian national and international congregations, archives of political parties, and those of varied civil society actors. In recent years, we have extended our focus to include a wide diversity of religious and spiritual articulations – expanding our collections to preserve heritage and knowledge on Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Freemasonry, and new age spirituality, among others. We do not only collect and conserve our materials, but also seek to valorise the stories they hold, either through research projects, or through public exhibitions and events.
What will be your main role in the MIRETAGE project?
We are halfway into the first project year and all partners are preparing an exhaustive state-of-the-art regarding minority heritage. As KADOC, we are guiding this collective writing effort, to deliver a fist substantial draft by the fall of this year.
Simultaneously, our partners are conducting in depth interviews with all kinds of possible stakeholders in the field: museums, galleries, archives, policy makers, community groups, and grassroots organisations. Eventually, their needs, concerns, remarks, and words of encouragement will be integrated into the state-of-the-art. We support our partners with the in’s and out’s of this interviewing process, and will summarise their main findings in a neat and accessible text.
Are you involved (or were you involved) in any projects/initiatives related to minority religious heritage?
Together with heritage communities, KADOC has been part of a wide range of initiatives on minority religious heritage, of which a few deserve a special mention. Our first explorations of migration heritage in Belgium happened during the Stafkaart project (2008-2010), which hoped to map the many and varied organisations of communities with a migration past. This sprouted various new ideas and initiatives, including Dakira (2015) to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Moroccan migration to Belgium. Acknowledging that Muslims had been part of Europe’s past long before, the Field Lines project (2019) unraveled the first European encounters with Islam, the Maghreb and North Africa. Continuing on the same elan, the heritage project Hemelsbreed (2019-20) explored different established religious rites in Belgium, with a particular focus on their material and immaterial heritage, and formulated some policy recommendations to better accommodate minority religious heritage. Currently ongoing are Hilal, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Islamic rite in Belgium, and Negotiating Solidarity, on the heritage and memory of labour migrant communities.
What is the most thrilling part of the project for you?
In our research, we have been diving deep into archives, books, and papers to unearth Belgium’s migration history. While these materials are undeniably very interesting, it is an enormous added value to also work with communities with a migration past themselves. Their experiences and testimonies have often not been recorded, even though they hold the richest details, most compelling perspectives, and the most capturing stories. In MIRETAGE, we will work with them to bring their stories to a wider audience and to experiment to the fullest with trails as our tool. It is yet unsure where this leads us, but we are confident that it will be an enriching experience for everyone involved.