La Méditerranéité à l’épreuve des défis révolutionnaires et migratoires en Tunisie: Dynamiques et représentations
Mediterraneity Confronted with Revolutionary and Migratory Challenges in Tunisia: Dynamics and Representations

Summary/Abstract: Mediterraneity Confronted with Revolutionary and Migratory Challenges in Tunisia: Dynamics and Representations. Mediterraneity is frequently depicted as a natural space of dialogue, circulation, and cooperation between the northern and southern shores. Yet the Tunisian experience since the 2011 revolution profoundly challenges this idealized narrative. Rather than constituting a harmonious or self-evident reality, Mediterraneity emerges as a social, political, and symbolic construction shaped by historical asymmetries, competing representations, and evolving power relations. Drawing on a socio-anthropological perspective and an analysis of post-revolutionary transformations, this article examines how Mediterraneity is being reconfigured in contemporary Tunisia.The discussion first revisits the historical and geopolitical foundations of the concept, underlining how Euro-Mediterranean relations have long been structured around imbalances embedded in cooperation frameworks. Particular attention is given to the evolution of the European Union’s Mediterranean policy, from the Barcelona Process and the European Neighbourhood Policy to the post-2011 strategic approach, which increasingly links security, mobility governance, economic stabilization, and migration control. These policy instruments, while formally promoting partnership and shared prosperity, continue to reproduce structural asymmetries that strongly influence how Tunisian actors perceive and negotiate Mediterraneity.The article then analyzes how the 2011 revolution reshaped social imaginaries and uses of the Mediterranean, especially through new forms of citizen mobility, artistic and cultural expressions, and contested symbolic meanings. These transformations reveal both the emancipatory potential and the profound vulnerabilities characterizing Tunisia’s position within the Mediterranean space.Finally, the study investigates the impact of recent migration dynamics—irregular departures, changing mobility patterns, and the European Union’s externalization mechanisms—on Mediterranean imaginaries in Tunisia. These developments expose fractures, new forms of resistance, and alternative aspirations emerging from civil society and youth groups in the South, illustrating how Mediterraneity today is contested, re-appropriated, and re-imagined from below.

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