Honorary Doctorate for Marie-Claire Foblets

September 29, 2016

On 29 September 2016, Marie-Claire Foblets, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, will be awarded the title Doctor Honoris Causa in Brussels

The Université Saint-Louis in Brussels, Belgium, honours Marie-Claire Foblets by awarding her the title Doctor Honoris Causa in recognition of her exceptional academic career, her scientific achievements and her commitment to social issues, particularly those revolving around migration and integration. The university refers especially to her efforts within the committee ‘Assises de l’interculturalité’, which worked against discrimination and made an outstanding contribution to social diversity, particularly in the realm of religion. In 2011, this committee developed recommendations on behalf of the Belgian government.

Academic Career

For more than twenty years Professor Foblets taught law and social and cultural anthropology in the Universities of Leuven, Antwerp and Brussels. Before becoming a member of the Max Planck Society in March 2012, she was professeur ordinaire (full professor) at the Catholic University of Leuven, where she headed the Institute for Migration Law and Legal Anthropology. She has also been a member of various networks of researchers in Europe, including the Association française d’anthropologie du droit (AFAD), of which she served as co-president for several years. In 2001 she was elected to the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (KVAB). In 2004 she received the Francqui Prize, the most distinguished scientific award in the humanities in Belgium. She has been a member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences since 2015.

Professor Foblets has conducted research and published widely on issues of migration law (including the elaboration of European migration law after the Treaty of Amsterdam), citizenship and nationality law, integration, anti-racism, and non-discrimination. Her research interests include the application of Islamic family law in Europe and, more recently, the accommodation of cultural and religious diversity under state law.

Website Marie-Claire Foblets

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