Ghent University Faculty of Arts & Philosophy Department of English Strategy and ritual in institutional encounters A linguistic ethnography of weekly meetings in the British Embassy in Brussels Ellen Van Praet Proefschrift ingediend tot het behalen van de graad van Doctor in de Taal- en Letterkunde: Germaanse Talen Aan de Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte Universiteit Gent 2005 Promotor: Prof. Dr. S. Slembrouck Co-promotor: Prof. Dr. A.-M. Simon-Vandenbergen Ontwerp omslag: Daniël Mortier Afbeelding omslag: Walter Schelfhout Strategy and ritual in institutional encounters A linguistic ethnography of weekly meetings in the British Embassy in Brussels Preface Soms schreeuwt de stem in mijn hoofd zo hard dat ik er bang van word. Ik heb geen knop waarmee ik het geluid zachter kan zetten. Als kind al niet. Als kind kwam ik mijn bed uit en vroeg ik: ‘Papa, waarom kan je niet niet denken?’ Dat probeerde ik elke avond. Heel serieus en geconcentreerd probeerde ik niet te denken. Maar dan dacht ik toch. De stem was toen nog niet zo schel als nu. Ik noem de stem ‘Maria’. Maria eist onverbiddelijke aandacht. Om de zoveel weken is het raak, er is geen patroon in te ontdekken. De enige manier om haar te ontlopen is afleiding zoeken. Zelf praten, tegen wie dan ook, of een rustgevende tablet nemen. Ik houd niet van rustgevende tabletten, maar ze helpen wel. Je wordt er loom van. Je bewegingen worden trager. Maria’s stem wordt geleidelijk zachter en wat ze zegt, is minder belangrijk. De dingen die Maria me toeschreeuwt, zijn namelijk Van Groot Belang en Heel Erg Interessant. Als ik alles wat ze zegt gelijk zou opschrijven, zou ik een oeuvre hebben waarmee je het Centraal Boekhuis compleet kan afvullen. Geniale teksten, echt waar. Gevat, compact en met een brille…ik weet nooit precies wat een brille is, maar ik weet wel dat menig gesubsidieerd schrijver in zijn linkerpink zou willen hebben wat ik op dit moment dank zij Maria aan brille in huis heb. Na de geniale teksten komen de verwijten. ‘Je deugt niet,’ verkondigt Maria, ‘Ik heb medelijden met jouw man, je bent een ontaarde moeder en een vriendin van niks. Wanneer zorg je er nou eens voor dat je beter wordt?’ Beter=aardiger. Meer betrokken. ‘Je bent veel te druk met je eigen dingen. Met je werk, je computer, je digitale camera. Alles draait om jou, je bent een ras-egoïst.’ Ik bijt op mijn lip. ‘Hou op met schrijven,’ dicteert ze. ‘Hou toch op met al die ijdelheid, met de interviews, de fotosessies, de onzin. Ga wat nuttigs doen. Lees je kinderen vaker voor. Neem een parttime baan in de thuiszorg.’ Ik probeer Maria uit te leggen dat ik dat de bejaarden niet kan aandoen. En dat mijn talent, voor zover aanwezig, nu eenmaal bij het schrijven ligt. ‘O ja?’ schampert ze. ‘En wat doe je dan in bad? Wat denk je daar te bereiken? Waar blijft dat tweede boek van je? Je kunt je publiek niet eeuwig aan het lijntje houden, mevrouw de schrijfster.’ Ik word boos. Zo boos dat ik uit bad stap. Ik droog me haastig af, knoop een handdoek om, ga naar beneden, loop naar mijn werkkamer en neem met een halfnatte rug plaats achter mijn bureau. Maria vindt dat ik er bespottelijk uitzie. ‘Sinds wanneer kan jou dat wat schelen?’ vraag ik. Ik begin te typen. Fragment from Heleen van Royen’s column ‘Maria roept’1 1The column appeared in the Dutch newspaper Het Parool and was published in Je zal er maar mee getrouwd zijn (van Royen, 2003: 41-43). I owe many thanks to Bernard De Clerck for 5 Sometimes the voice in my head screams so loud it terrifies me. There’s no knob I can twist to lower the volume. Not even when I was a child. When I was a child, I once got out of bed and asked my father ‘Daddy, why can’t you not think?’ Every evening I tried. I concentrated very hard and tried not to think. But I ended up thinking anyway. The voice wasn’t as shrill then as it is now. I call the voice ‘Maria’. Maria demands my undivided attention. Every couple of weeks she’s back again and I’ve found no way of predicting when. The only way of avoiding her is to seek diversion. Speak to myself, or to anyone at all, or take a tablet to calm down. I don’t like those sedatives but they do help. They make you all drowsy. They slow you down. Slowly but surely, they make Maria’s voice softer and then what she says isn’t all that important anymore. The things Maria shouts at me are Highly Important and Very, Very Interesting. If I were to write down everything she says I’d have a collection large enough to fill the Central Library. Ingenious texts, honestly. Sharp- witted, terse and full of verve. I’ve never really known what verve means, but I do know that many a subsidised writer would give anything to have as much of it in his little finger as I do - all thanks to Maria. And after I’ve penned all those genial pieces, that’s when the reproaches start. ‘You’re useless’, Maria would declare. ‘I really feel sorry for your husband; you’re a degenerate mother and useless as a friend. When are you ever going to better yourself?’ Better = nicer. More concerned. ‘You’re too busy with your own things. Your work, your computer, your digital camera. You think the whole world turns around you, you’re a total egotist.’ I bite my lip. ‘Stop all that writing,’ she dictates. ‘Drop all that vanity, those interviews and photo shoots, all that nonsense. Do something useful for a change. How about reading your children stories more often or getting yourself a part time job in home care?’ I try to explain to Maria that I couldn’t possibly do that to those poor old folks. That my talent, as far as I have any, is in writing. ‘O yeah?’ she sneers. ‘So what are you doing in the bath? Where do you think that will get you? What about that second book of yours? You can’t keep your readers waiting forever, missus writer.’ That really gets my goat up. I’m so furious I jump up out of the bath. I dry off in a hurry, wrap a towel around me, rush downstairs to my room and sit down at the desk, my back still half-wet. Maria thinks I look ludicrous. ‘Since when did you start caring?’ I ask. I start typing. Fragment from Heleen van Royen’s column ‘Maria’s calling’, translated by Peter Flynn. introducing me to van Royen’s inspiring, humorous and hilarious writings. I am much indebted to Peter Flynn for an expert translation. 6 Celebrating diversity I often tried to stop it, wanted to stop it and was haunted by it at nights but I could not bring it to a standstill. So at some point I decided to write it down, hoping the permanence of print would suppress it. Trying to come to grips with the disorder of thought has been a most challenging, disturbing, confrontational, conflicting and tumultuous endeavour. I have swayed uncertainly between seemingly conflicting demands and struggled with turmoil and chaos. I listened doubtfully to a demanding voice telling me to be scientific and objective but was ever so often halted by an awareness of not always knowing the ‘right’ answer. Personal expectations and prejudices clashed with local meanings and perceptions from the field. I oscillated between a need to be critically analytical and an urge to be creative. I was confronted with the chaos and uncontrollability of the creative process. Days of euphoria and self- confidence were painfully disturbed by frustration and self-destructive thinking. Sometimes words and ideas would flow unhindered from my mind, at other times they would simply refuse and resist. I was bestowed with the gift of two uncontrollably flowing and flowering wonderful children. Sometimes lively, sprightly and nerve-wrackingly rebellious, at other times inconsolably needing comfort. I swung back and forth between the egotistic desire to complete my study and the compelling drive to be a caring mother. But gradually the pendulum motion dampened. It came to a standstill at the point where I realized that I would have to abandon control and surrender safely to the diversity and uncontrollability of life in all its facets. I learned how to deal with expanding and changing perceptions and to look at reality from many different angles. I learned the value of play, curiosity and not always knowing the ‘right’ answer. I learned the importance of self-nurturing and that failures can be the catalyst for success. I learned to break through the fears and blocks that inhibit creativity, gain belief in my ideas, get over the thresholds which made me afraid to say the wrong things, paint a bad picture, write a foggy paragraph. I learned to go with the flow. 7 And so a transformation was triggered. The flaws of fieldwork and wandering writing turned me not only into an ethnographer discovering and celebrating the dynamics of diversity, but also into a stronger and more flexible person. I learned to see, assimilate and use different perspectives and viewpoints; to change viewpoint, change perspective and allow difficulties without complaint; to replace one-dimensionality by multi- dimensionality; to be flexible and to flow. Not unrelatedly and yet almost ironically this dissertation documents a community’s craving for stability, predictability and status quo.