Mirages of Race: Blackness, Racialization, and the Black Movement in Tunisia

The goal of this dissertation is to study the historical and contemporary formations of race in Tunisia through an analysis of the trajectories and experiences of black populations. This dissertation is the first to propose a comprehensive study of blackness in contemporary Tunisia. To do so, it studies the experiences of the two largest populations that are categorized as black but who are rarely studied together - namely black Tunisians and sub-Saharan migrants. A comparative study of the experiences of these two populations allows me to trace the convergences and divergences in their experiences of being categorized as black and deduce the socio-political constructions of blackness governing these experiences. What emerges in the historical and contemporary socio-political manifestations of, the discourses about, as well as the processes and mechanisms re/producing blackness is the mirage-ish nature of race; race is not always visible, or it may become visible to some through other senses (like smelling and hearing) or after genealogical information is obtained. At the same time, like the phenomenon of the mirage itself, people make sense of the world through these mirages of race, and, in many cases, decide to act based on them. My research relies on qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, namely: interviews (31 black Tunisians; 31 sub-Saharan migrants), discussions, observations, as well as analytical readings of primary and secondary source material collected primarily in Tunisia between September 2020 and January 2023. This research contributes to the scholarship on how race operates in a society; overall, it pushes our understanding of race beyond visible phenotype.