Belgian Bande dessinée(s). Industry, policy, legitimacy

the largest cultural industries in Europe. Therein lies a medium which can be a book and not a book. A medium with links and crossovers with multiple art forms and mediums: comics. Back in 1975, French sociologist Luc Boltanski academically baptised the Bande dessinnée as a separate cultural field. Since its advent and continuing into the present day, comics went through a quest for recognition of its cultural value which has found many setbacks in the way and still today does not enjoy full unanimity. In this thesis I explore the social process of legitimation with the help of the concepts of “field” and “art worlds”. I follow a biographical perspective by highlighting changes in the way from creation to further evolution, understanding what and who determines the transitory value associated with comics. The study follows an interdisciplinary approach mainly fed by cultural economics, economic sociology and political economy. By conducting a case study, the thesis makes sense of a scenery in which transition is shaped by local recognition, political economy aspects and, changing partnerships. I particularly focus on two main actors, the publishing industry and the state and unveil recognise their influence in the way the comics artistic expression evolved. Belgium serves as a double case study in the present qualitative study. The cradle of the European comics tradition has two major language groups (French and Dutchspeaking) with separate politics, policy and administrative determinants, historical traditions, artistic conventions, cultural practices, industry structures, commerce modes and, markets. Both sides display distinct legitimation paths and coinciding strategies. This variety provides for an array of answers to the two research questions, namely “How do the Belgian publishing industry and the state legitimise respectively the comics field?” and “What is the role of partnerships and networks in the legitimation processes?”. Big and independent publishers justify their strategies differently, towards the commerce and the art poles respectively, but hostility is somewhat fading. Today, we can assert that timid and scattered, the state actively intervenes and shapes the field, towards the art pole. The thesis ends with an evaluation of partnerships that have existed throughout history, as they can shed some light on the constraints, weaknesses and opportunities for promoting a field that despite everything remains contested.