The observation and analysis of the revolution processes in Tunisia, must take into account the three principal elements (actors, spaces, chronology), which draw together a dynamic map of the revolution showing a direct correlations between the processes of spatial (enclosure and distance), economic (investments, infrastructures and development), and social (poverty, unemployment and exclusion) marginalization, and the dynamics of the revolution. One evidences here: the revolution process went on first in the marginalized or peripheral regions (South, Center and West of the country and big cities' working-class suburbs), and was led, at first, by the small farmers and landless, workers and, more generally, marginalized and poor people. The concept of marginalization must be considered here as continuous processes of dispossession/accumulation that operate in the framework of the double competition over resources and services between social groups, territories and economic sectors. Thus, one could say that the situation of marginality has created the conditions or the 'opportunity' and the context for resistances and protests that have been proliferating and 'accumulating' over the years. My presentation aims to revisit the revolutionary processes in Tunisia, 3 years after the fall of dictatorship in January 14th 2011, within the concepts of social marginalization and dispossession.

The querelle the femmes spells the rhythms of Egyptian modern history, where a patriarchal understanding of gender relations, permeating both the European (colonial and orientalist) and the indigenous (national) cultural discourses, is incessantly challenged by women’s cultural and political agency. This dynamics of resistance against the patriarchal power emerged clearly since 2011, when revolutionary women and men joined the forces and challenged the neo-patriarchal political leadership of two Presidents (Mubarak in 2011, and Morsi in 2013), of the Army, and the Islamists. The Egyptian Revolution initiated a new generation of Egyptian women to political “disobedience”, and is creating a fresh grassroots feminist culture, but its roots date back to the end of the XIX century. Grounded on previous historical research, and based on extensive fieldwork (interviews and participant observation), this paper will look at the new emerging feminism, and at feminists practices of resistance against neo-patriarchal interpretations of political power. In particular, I will look at both those well established and rooted subjects – such as women NGO, prominent feminist intellectuals – as well as new informal feminist groups (feminist reading groups, emerging young feminist activists), and especially those emerging far from the main historical centers of urban feminism in Egypt, investigating the trajectories of new groups in the peripheral areas and their attitudes towards the complex relationship between gender and politics. Through the analysis of a selection of case studies, I argue that feminism is the continuing revolution in Egypt, and I study its impact on the whole society.

The comparisons that have been made between the Arab revolutions and the French Revolution of 1789, the Spring of the Peoples in 1848 or even a new ‘1989’, unsettled the myth of Arab exceptionalism and of Arab cultures or histories in relation to politics. Moreover, for some, the benevolent universalization of the Arab revolutions also entailed the possibility to inscribe the revolts into the teleological narrative of democratization – a narrative in which a specific Western European history has been transformed from a local historical anomaly into an international norm, a universal standard against which other countries are measured. While there are many reasons why the idea of ‘a catching up’ is erroneous and Eurocentric, it brought our attention to the fundamental weaknesses of the authoritarian persistence paradigm. Local subaltern histories tend to be forgotten and even ignored within the current debates on the uprisings. The dominant focus on ‘moments’ of outbursts of social protest tend to underexpose the broader revolutionary processes that built up to these grand risings. In this paper, we would like to trace the longer history of increasing socio-economic struggle in Morocco and Tunisia. We have seen a consistent increase of social protest over the past decade, especially in the smaller towns and villages where misery, despair and inequality among the country’s population are felt much stronger than in the large cities. We argue that the political and democratic protests of the last years (before and after the start of the Arab Revolts) and the history of these protests cannot be viewed as unrelated phenomena but must be understood as part of the same historical process. To understand the Arab revolts and its impact we cannot limit ourselves to the ‘simple grand rising’ itself, but have to take into account the history of the numerous and seemingly insignificant cases of local protest in the years leading up to revolts. Strikes or protests that may have begun over what appear to be small and local socio-economic struggles can rapidly evolve into challenges on a broader political level. At the same time, a rise in political struggles can feed back into local and dispersed sites of struggle and boost their fighting spirits. Focusing on the disturbances in the phosphate mining region of Khouribga (Morocco) in 2011 and the protests in towns such as Gafsa and Siliana (Tunisia), we will show the particular dynamic between political and socio-economic struggle.

The problematique of the relation between power and resistance has recently again become topical in relation to the waves of social movements and unrest which have swept across North Africa, the Middle East, and beyond. This paper aims to analyze processes of subjectivation for identities of resistance, focusing on the frames within which identities of those who seek to ‘resist’ power(s) are established, and the impact they produce. The “Arab Revolutions” which started in Tunisia in December 2010 were met with surprise by the wider (especially but not only) Western public as well as by the ‘experts’. As a still dominant narrative highlights the supposedly leading role played by the educated, globalized, internet-connected Middle-class youth in the Arab Uprisings, there is been an excess of research focus on political actors and institutional processes at the ‘top’. This paper aims to investigate the emergence of new subaltern subjects as protagonists of the Egyptian Revolution(s). As street politics played a fundamental role in the protest movements before 2011, the role of some ‘traditionally political’ actors, such as independent trade unions and students, had been analysed in recent studies, but still little research exists on the trajectories of these subjects since 2011. Based on intensive fieldwork (interviews, focus groups and participant observation), the paper will look at the new, problematic, emerging subaltern subjects, and at their practices of resistance. In particular, I will look at both those already active subjects –such as independent trade unions and civic activism- and especially those without a tradition of political activism, like the football ‘ultras’, and the self-organised spontaneous resistance in the ‘social nonmovements’ ‘hidden’ at the margins of the large cities.

During the 18 days in early 2011 that came to be known as Egypt’s January 25 Revolution, a documentation project was launched at the American University in Cairo (AUC) with the aim of reflecting the role and experience of the participants in the mass popular protests. The “University on the Square: Documenting Egypt’s 21st Century Revolution” project is an ongoing community-based archival initiative, aimed first at AUC and then broadened to encompass a wider base of contributors. Using internet web-based technologies applied to similar “crowdsourcing” projects around the world, University on the Square solicited donations of digital photographs and videos taken at Tahrir Square and elsewhere, but also collected tangible remains of the protests like signs, leaflets, souvenirs, newspapers, and artifacts like tear gas canisters, in addition to developing an extensive website archive. This paper will cover these aspects of the project and also outline the project’s oral history efforts to record experiences of the 2011 uprising and the subsequent three years of protest and political activity in Egypt. The more than 300 interviews conducted (in Arabic and English) capture the experiences of a wide variety of male and female participants such as college students, workers, academics, activists, football “ultras,” graffiti artists, journalists, refugees, and some political figures, representing a variety of viewpoints (including Islamists and apathetic observers in addition to those strongly opposed to presidents Mubarak or Morsi). The paper will discuss challenges faced, especially how constantly shifting political and security circumstances and popular attitudes in Egypt affected the course of the project and the nature of the material gathered. The ways in which the resulting physical and digital archive have been and can be used, as well as a comparison with other projects to document Egypt’s revolution, will also be addressed.