Making the Dinar, Producing the State in Postcolonial Tunisia

Episode 78: Making the Dinar, Producing the State in Postcolonial Tunisia

This interview focuses on the archives around the creation of the Tunisian Central Bank and the Tunisian dinar in 1958/1959. Looking at these documents as material assemblages, help illuminate how the making of national currency is a process that links state power and the production of the economy. Indeed, the entanglements between economic imaginaries and state power are revealed through the body of money, as national currency becomes a privileged site of intervention for the state. By considering different archives, that of the Central Bank along with state plans of the same period the talk also reveals the debates around what the economy ought to be and ultimately about the nature and modes of state power in the postcolonial moment. Myriam Amri's PhD project is on social relations around money in Tunisia. More specifically, she considers how monetary policies around creation, conversion and inflation permeate social discourses and everyday economic practices.  The project ultimately seeks to see how the forms and meanings of money help trace relations of power in contemporary Tunisia. 

Myriam Amri is a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology & Middle Eastern studies at Harvard University. She previously completed an MSc in anthropology & development from the London School of Economics and is the co-founder of the literary magazine "Asameena".

CEMAT Director, Dr. Laryssa Chomiak, led this interview which was recorded during the CEMAT Director’s Conference on “Narratives of Legitimacy and the Maghrebi State: Power, Law and Comparison” held on 21 June 2019 in Sidi BouSaid, Tunisia. 

Posted by Hayet Lansari, Librarian, Outreach Coordinator, Content Curator (CEMA).

Workshop sur « Écriture, mémoire et histoire »: Écrire ses mémoires ou comment parler de soi ?

Episode 77: 

Workshop sur:

« Écriture, mémoire et histoire »

Écrire ses mémoires ou comment parler de soi ?

Elaine Mokhtefi est une écrivaine et peintre américaine. Elle est issue d’une famille de la classe ouvrière américaine de New York. La lutte pour l’indépendance l’a conduite à vivre douze ans en Algérie où elle a travaillé comme journaliste et traductrice. Elle s’est mariée à un ancien membre de l’Armée de libération nationale algérienne (ALN) devenu écrivain lui aussi, Mokhtar Mokhtefi, décédé en 2015, auteur de mémoires très remarqués J’étais Français-Musulman (barzakh, 2016). Elaine Mokhtefi a travaillé pendant la guerre de libération nationale (1954-1962) au bureau du FLN à New York qui avait pour mission de défendre la cause algérienne auprès des Nations Unies. Elle a vécu à Alger de 1962 à 1974 et elle a été l'un des organisateurs du premier festival culturel panafricain de l'été 1969. Elle a joué un rôle déterminant dans la création de la section internationale du parti des Black Panthers à Alger et est devenue une proche collaboratrice d’Eldridge Cleaver, leader des Black Panthers. Ses mémoires, Alger, troisième capitale mondiale, ont été publiés par les Éditions Verso (États-Unis et Royaume-Uni) en août 2018, et par les éditions La Fabrique (France) en mai 2019. Ils seront publiés par les Editions Barzakh (Algérie) sous l'intitulé Alger, capitale de la révolution. De Fanon aux Black Panthers en juillet 2019. Elaine Mokhtefi vit actuellement à New York.

Dans ce podcast, Elaine Mokhtefi anime un workshop sur : « Écriture, mémoire et histoire » où elle revient en détails sur son expérience d'écriture.

La conférence d'Elaine Mokhtefi a été programmée dans le cadre du cycle des conférences « Témoignages sur la Guerre de Liberation Nationale » co-organisé par Centre d'Études Maghrébines en Algérie (CEMA) et le Centre de Recherche en Anthropologie sociale et culturelle (CRASC).  Elle a eu lieu le 06 novembre 2019 au CEMA, Oran. Dr. Karim Ouaras, Maître de conférences, Université d’Oran 2 / CEMA, a modéré le débat.

Land, Labor, and Youth Aspirations in the Gharb, Morocco

Episode 76: Land, Labor, and Youth Aspirations in the Gharb, Morocco

In 2015, the Government of Morocco and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. aid agency, signed the Morocco Land and Employability Compact. This Compact includes a project to title 51,000 hectares of collective land in the Gharb region, thereby turning it into private property. The project’s discourse emphasizes that integrating land into market systems leads to greater productivity, enhanced access to credit, and increased land values, all of which benefit rural populations. However, government reports largely fail to account for how agrarian transformations resulting from privatization have differentiated impacts on different rural population groups, particularly young people.

The Gharb plain, which is located along the north-western Atlantic coast, has long been one of the most agriculturally productive regions of Morocco. Since the 1970s, demographic growth, land fragmentation, and the rise of foreign investment in agro-business have all contributed to shifts in rural livelihoods and income-generating activities. Many households no longer rely solely on agriculture as their primary source of income. As a result, young people living in collective land in the Gharb are pursuing diverse livelihood strategies, even as their future aspirations diverge significantly from those of previous generations.

This episode was recorded on August 23rd 2019, at the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM). 

Posted by Hayet Lansari, Librarian, Outreach Coordinator, Content Curator (CEMA).

The Husyanid Dynasty and Spatial Control and Judicial Control of the Enslaved Blacks of Tunis

Episode 75: The Husyanid Dynasty and Spatial Control and Judicial Control of the Enslaved Blacks of Tunis

In this podcast, Dr. Ismael Montana, Associate Professor of History at Northern Illinois University, discusses the impact of the Husaynid dynasty (1705-1957) on the enslaved Sudanic communities of Tunis. Montana does so by looking at the Stambali, a ritual of musical possession based on the fusion of the Hausa Bori cult and popular Islam, performed primarily by the Sudanic communities of Tunis. 

He argues that the Husaynid dynasty actively sought to transform Sudanic communities into on of several corporatist communities in the Tunisian Beylic, by means of spatial control. In the early eighteenth century, the Husaynid Beys promoted the sainthood of Sidi Saad al-Abid, a former slave from Borno, in order to serve as a rallying figure for the freed and enslaved Sudanic communities that had been settled in Tunis as a result of the trans-Saharan slave trade. The Sufi brotherhood that formed around this saint was given a judicial-administrative apparatus, designed to self-regulate the community, and structure it within the state's religio-political scheme. Montana maintains that while the Sudani community entered the Husaynid political system via the Stambali, the processes by which that group was integrated relied on its specific religious culture, which continued to set them apart from the rest of Tunisian society.

Ismael Montana's research interests include the social and economic history of slavery, culture, and citizenship in Northwest Africa and the western Mediterranean basin from the 18th century to the present.  He is currently the Vice-President of West Africa Research Association (WARA). 

This podcast was recorded at the CEMAT Director’s Conference on “Narratives of Legitimacy and the Maghrebi State: Power, Law and Comparison” held on 21 June 2019 in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia. 

We thank Dr. Tamara Turner, Ethnomusicologist and Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for the History of Emotions, for her interpretation of Natiro/ Ya Joro, from the Hausa repertoire of diwan.

Edited and posted by Hayet Lansari, Librarian, Outreach Coordinator, Content Curator (CEMA). 

Volunteer Networks in the Mediterranean / Réseaux de volontariat en Méditerranée

Episode 74: Volunteer Networks in the Mediterranean / Réseaux de volontariat en Méditerranée

Dans ce podcast, Brooke Durham, doctorante au département d'histoire à Stanford University, propose une étude du volontariat comme stratégie de développement en Algérie et au Maghreb avant et après l’indépendance en Algérie.

Le Prix de l’Engagement Politique dans la Tunisie Autoritaire

Episode 73: Le Prix de l'Engagement Politique dans la Tunisie Autoritaire

Dans ce podcast, Dr. Michaël Bechir Ayari discute son dernier livre, Le prix de l'engagement politique dans la Tunisie autoritaire. 

Cet ouvrage retrace l’histoire des militants tunisiens d’extrême gauche et du mouvement islamiste durant la période autoritaire tunisienne, et apporte une analyse biographique de leurs combats politiques de jeunesse. À travers cette perspective, l’apport essentiel de ce travail consiste en la formulation de la notion de l’origine « socio-identitaire » des militants qui, selon l’auteur, permet d’illustrer et d’expliquer les différents intérêts et prises de position politiques des uns et des autres. 

À travers la conversation sur la thématique initiale du livre, ce podcast a été aussi une opportunité pour élargir le débat à des questions plus contemporaines et a permis d’orienter le débat vers l’effet de cette fracture sociale et identitaire sur les dynamiques politiques actuelles en Tunisie. Il a été notamment question de contextualiser les controverses émanant de certains processus engagés suite à la révolution tunisienne, tel que celui de la justice transitionnelle. 

Michaël Ayari est analyste senior pour International Crisis Group depuis 2011. Il est docteur en sciences politiques, chercheur associé à l'Institut de recherches et d'études sur le monde arabe et musulman (IREMAM) d'Aix-en-Provence. Auteur de nombreux articles sur la Tunisie et le monde arabe, il contribue régulièrement à la revue L'Année du Maghreb (CNRS-Éditions).

Sous-forme d'entretien avec Dr. Meriem Guetat, Directrice Assistante au CEMAT, ce podcast s'inscrit dans le cadre du cycle de conférences Pensées contemporaines et a été enregistré le 11 Avril 2019 au Centre d'Études Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT).

Moroccan Shari’a In The Age Of Colonialism

Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962-1979

Episode 71: Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962-1979

In this podcast, Professor Todd Shepard, historian at Johns Hopkins University, discusses his book Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962-1979, which is a history of how and why, during the period from 1962 through 1979, highly sexualized claims about Arab men saturated important French public discussions. The sexual revolution in France, he argues, was profoundly shaped by the continuing effects of the Algerian war of liberation and its revolution.  Sex, France, and Arab Men reveals how the struggle for Algerian independence and the sexual revolution in France are intertwined moments. Oftentimes imagined as an American or European invention, Shepard demonstrates how the struggle for sexual liberation was shaped by and grew out of the mid-twentieth century worldwide anticolonial movements.  The monograph, his second, first appeared in France as Mâle décolonisation. “L’homme arabe” et la France, de l’indépendance algérienne à la révolution iranienne.

This podcast is a recorded keynote lecture of the February 2019 Harry Franck Guggenheim Foundation (HFG), CEMA and CEMAT workshop on violence and social sciences methodology, held in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia. 

Interview with Mieczysław Boduszyński about his book: U.S. Democracy Promotion in the Arab World: Beyond Interests vs. Ideals

Episode 70: Interview with Mieczysław Boduszyński about his book: U.S. Democracy Promotion in the Arab World: Beyond Interests vs. Ideals

In this podcast, Professor Mieczysław Boduszyński discusses his forthcoming book, U.S. Democracy Promotion in the Arab World: Beyond Interests vs. Ideals (Lynne Rienner, 2019), which looks at the place of democracy promotion in American foreign policy. Though a key pillar of U.S. foreign policy, democracy promotion is the subject of significant debate within and outside of policy-making circles, especially regarding why, where, when, and how the United State promotes democracy. 

In this podcast, Prof. Boduszyński looks at the temporal shift in U.S. support for the 2011 Arab Uprisings during the Obama administration - first supporting and later retreating from democracy promotion - highlighting the longstanding tension between interests and ideals in U.S. foreign policy. The podcast concludes with a discussion on the Trump administration's policy on democratic promotion and its relationship with regional autocrats. 

Mieczysław (Mietek) Boduszyński is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations at Pomona College in California, USA. He was previously a diplomat with the U.S. Department of State with postings in Albania, Egypt, Iraq, Japan, Kosovo, and Libya.

Professor Jacob Mundy of Colgate University, and current Visiting Fulbright Scholar in Tunisia, led the interview, which was recorded as part of the Contemporary Thought series on March 20th, 2019 at the Centre d'Études Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT).

We thank our friend Mohamed Boukhoudmi for his interpretation of the extract of "Nouba Dziriya" by Dr. Noureddine Saoudi for the introduction and conclusion of this podcast.

Posted by Hayet Lansari, Librarian, Outreach Coordinator, Content Curator (CEMA).

Educational Transitions in Post-Revolutionary Spaces: Islam, Security, and Social Movements in Tunisia

Episode 69: Educational Transitions in Post-Revolutionary Spaces: Islam, Security, and Social Movements in Tunisia

In this podcast, Dr. Tavis D. Jules is interviewed on his recent book, Educational Transitions in Post-Revolutionary Spaces : Islam, Security and Social Movements in Tunisia, co-authored with Dr. Teresa Barton. Jules and Barton trace the development of Tunisia’s educational system to the 2010/2011 contestatory events that led to the Tunisian Revolution and embarked on a period of large-scale institutional reform, including education sector reform. This post-Revolutionary reform has primarily been concerned with providing young Tunisian citizens with the necessary skills for a rapidly changing job market.  In his presentation, Jules engages with the issue of how a strong educational system produced generations of educated citizens, but whose most recent generation is frustrated by a weakened socio-economic system unable to absorb a young and educated workforce.  The book itself traces the history and evolution of Tunisia’s educational system since independence in 1956 to the contemporary period,  and ties its analysis to an « educational transitologies framework ». Through several chapters, the book engages and explores themes related to education, including security, gender, political Islam and social movements and analyses these comparatively pre- and post-political transition which commenced in 2011. 

In this podcast, Dr. Jules was invited to answer a number of questions touching upon the following themes : 

• Definition of the concept of conscientization and its importance to understand the role of education.
• The common link that the book draws between education and Islam, security and social movements. 
• The book’s methodology to study 'educational transitologies' and what the example of Tunisia tells us about this theoretical framework. 

Dr. Tavis D. Jules is Associate Professor in Cultural and Educational Policy at Loyola University, specializing in Comparative and International Education. His research interests include, regionalism and governance, transitory spaces, and policy challenges in small island developing states (SIDS).

CEMAT Assistant Director Dr. Meriem Guetat, CEMAT led the interview, which was recorded as part of the Contemporary Thought series on December 13th, 2018 at the Centre d'Études Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT).

Posted by Hayet Lansari, Librarian, Outreach Coordinator, Content Curator (CEMA).