The idea of cosmopolitanism as a category of analysis has been employed by diverse parties to construct an urban history of colonial and post-colonial Tunis. On the part of Italian scholars it has often been used implicitly to support a romanticized Italian narrative of its community’s deep roots in Tunis, one that “tragically” ended with Tunisian independence in 1956. Concurrently, Tunisian scholars have used cosmopolitanism to buttress a nationalist narrative of tolerance and cooperation across its populace. While the former tale is replete with Orientalist nostalgia for an imagined, bourgeois cosmopolitanism, the latter took the opposite extreme. There, a nationalist narrative co-opted the discourse of bourgeois cosmopolitanism to remake Tunisia into a land metaphorically between Europe and the Middle East—a model of development. And yet, neither usage of the idea of cosmopolitanism advanced an inclusive model of Tunis under the protectorate. What the metropolitan polyglot meant for the demographically dominant and yet economically impoverished Italian community or for their Tunisian neighbors remains unclear. Moreover, the effect of local interaction between these two economically competitive groups on the development of self—relational identification (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000)—has yet to be uncovered. Using a single instance of socio-economic crisis, the 1911 Jellaz Riot, as a discursive lens, this study will explore local power dynamics between Italian immigrants and their Tunisian neighbors in the capital in order to formulate a working social history of metropolitan space. Moving beyond binary colonial models as well as concentrating on local community interaction and its resulting identification, this article will present a history of place that reintroduces the middling social elements—both Italian and Tunisian—into what has heretofore been an exclusionary tale of European fantasy or Tunisian nationalist triumph respectively. Looking at this turbulent period of 1911-1912 then, this paper will also expose the machinations of identity construction within these two groups as they developed vis-à-vis the other through labor competition in the tramways, docks and local markets of Tunis. In doing so, a new social history of metropolitan Tunis can begin which does not assume static identities nor singular dimensions of communal coexistence, cooperation or competition. But rather, one that is inclusive of all the messy bits of the urban palimpsest, of all the aspects of social indeterminacy that would play a role in developing both communities’ sense of self—in political participation, labor organization and social consciousness—throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1962, Safia Farhat and Abdelaziz Gorgi, the first Tunisian artists to teach at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Tunis, inaugurated the Société Zin to channel commissions for public and civic artworks. Framed by the dual objectives of expanding the Ecole’s section of applied arts and revitalizing the Tunisian artisanat, Farhat and Gorgi were committed to materializing elite conceptions of tunisianité, or Tunisian cultural patrimony, from their base in the city of Tunis. Due to the large number of civic buildings under construction or renovation, in addition to dozens of emerging private banks and hotels, Farhat and Gorgi generated patrons among wealthy business owners, politicians, and renowned architects. The two artists designed maquettes for monumental artworks in various media, including tapestry, mosaics, ceramics, ironwork, and stained glass, which were often executed by artisans hired from the Office National de l’Artisanat. Among the more prominent clients were architect Olivier Clement Cacoub, whose colossal hotels and municipal buildings symbolized the fusion of economic objectives with modern aesthetics, and Naceur Malouche, president of the Fédération Tunisienne des Agences de Voyage. Based on primary research conducted in 2009-2010, this paper examines Tunis the city as a hub for the enterprising synthesis of modernity, state crafting, and art production in the 1960s. Three Tunis institutions, the Société Zin, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and the Office National de l’Artisanat, were innovatively linked to a broader modernizing agenda by the astute maneuverings of Safia Farhat, who was herself intimately connected to the ministries through her marriage to Abdallah Farhat. The creation of modern art in Tunis was thus grounded not only in nationalist ideologies, but also on artists’ critical engagement with sites of economic and commercial development. Although paintings by the Ecole de Tunis are better ensconced in the canon of Tunisian modern art, artworks created under the auspices of the Société Zin, once displayed throughout the city, were crucial in defining the character of a new national art.

Spaces become branded or scripted through the intentional layering of symbolism upon the built environment, the visual and performative narration of a story, and the casting of an emblem that both informs and controls its greater socio-cultural context. In the compellingly retrospective “neo-colonial” 2000–2001 renovation or rebranding of Tunis’ Avenue Bourguiba, which included the expansion of sidewalks, the installation of café terraces and new monumental structures, the preservation of colonialist buildings and new construction using vaguely European styles of architecture, was ultimately a highly symbolic accomplishment that revived the public environment first engineered by French ex-patriots in the 1860s. These acts also contributed to the generation of revenue on site, the composition of an urban and national identity and the reception of Tunis’ image abroad. In so doing, they place Tunisia’s capital outside the traditional conception of postcolonial urbanism that assumes an opposition to colonial legacies, and at the same time demonstrates a longstanding tradition of branding environmental storytelling, urban theming or scripting; concepts generally considered to be western, postmodern and exclusively commercial in origin and practice. This essay shall outline the modification of the streetscape in the composition of a legible urban icon and indicator of Tunisia’s various socio-political and cultural personalities throughout its history. It will identify three distinct historic periods and the dominant themes or spatial brands that guided the form of the Avenue in each—“Parisian Colonial” (1860–1956), “Tunisian Modern” (1956–2000) and “Parisian Cosmopolitan” (2000–2010). It will not only present the physical changes made to the built environment, but also attempt to explain their underlying stimuli and their resultant socio-cultural effects. Looking forward, this work will investigate the potential for a new Avenue identity in light of the recent regime change that may likely bring with it a reassessment of the capital’s relationship with centralized authority, the west and its colonial and Bourguiba/Ben Ali-era heritage. Based upon a wide array of historical and contemporary source material, ephemera and personal observation on site, the interdisciplinary essay will bring Tunis into an emerging scholarly discourse. It will challenge the predominance of Algiers and Casablanca as unrivaled representatives of French colonial and postcolonial experiences in North Africa, while also further developing the concept of historical place branding in a non-Western context.

The dominant narrative of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution has been defined by a struggle flowing from the rural South to the capital of Tunis in a span of four weeks. Less attention, however, has been attributed to the spatiality of demonstrations once protests reached the capital of Tunis. Protesters, mostly ordinary inhabitants of the capital city, strategically chose spaces of resistance: First the square in front of the Tunisian General Union of Labor (UGTT), re-politicizing an organization that has historically held a contentious relationship with the ruling regime, and later moving to the now familiar Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the city’s main boulevard connecting the traditional medina to the colonial city. The height of contentious activity occurred in January 14, 2011 in front of the notorious Ministry of the Interior on Avenue Bourguiba, before moving to the ex-ruling RCD party headquarters and later to the offices of the Prime Minister (Kasbah). This paper will examine the spatiality of protest, particularly its movement and flow within the city of Tunis. I am especially attentive to the symbolic dimension of protest, and, in the case of the Jasmine revolution, the predominance of secular over religious spaces and symbols. What is the signification of the choice of secular spaces for demonstrations? How does a spatial analysis of protests in Tunis confirm or contest a historical reading of Tunisian society? How does religion figure in an understanding of the Jasmine revolution? Based on first-hand observations of Jasmine revolution events in the city of Tunis, my paper will discuss three overlapping political phenomena: (1) the flow of the protest within the city of Tunis itself before the January 14th ouster of President Ben Ali and (2) the semiotic dimension of contentious space, and (3), the secular-sacred dimension of the Jasmine revolution.

In the last years of President Zine Abedine Ben Ali’s rule (1987-2011), visitors to the metropolis of Tunis were undeniably struck by an omnipresent cult of authority, in the form of posters, flags, statues and political messages. Tunisians citizens themselves negotiated the political cluttering of space through avoidance, dismissal or subtle parody. A day before the January 14th, 2011 Jasmine Revolution, however, images and videos started circulating via the internet, depicting ordinary citizens tearing down, slashing and burning super-sized posters of ex-President Ben Ali, destroying naïve statues of the Number 7 symbolizing the day Ben Ali came to power in November of 1987, while military vehicles drove over photos of the ex-leader scattered on the boulevards of Tunis. The dramatic destruction of the iconographic display of political power by ordinary citizens, constitutes and important political practice and symbolizes widespread sentiments vis-à-vis the former leader and his authoritarian politics. Historically, inhabitants of Tunis have constructed and contested the city through diverse practices, yet the recent destruction of a pervasive cult of authority constitutes an important contemporary political act, one that marks the onset of ordinary citizens reclaiming the city’s space, place and politics. As mundane contentious politics such as the public devastation of Ben Ali’s cult of personality became enmeshed in large scale protests, less attention is paid to the initial daring and emotional political acts. Days before the Jasmine Revolution, such public acts were deemed both criminal and unthinkable. Based on primary research to be conducted in Tunis (summer of 2011), this paper will link post-revolutionary political questions, such as the upcoming June 2011 election to the spatial-political void left by the destruction of the cult of personality. Whether serving as new advertising space or location for election campaigning, the un-cluttering of public space in Tunis reveals a new political dynamic, one in which ordinary citizens can reconstruct their city and redefine the rules of the political game.