Paper short abstract:

Narratives of the "revolutionary event" among young Tunisian activists reveal the importance of assessing the post-revolutionary moment within the realm of intimate social relations. Shifts in sociality that probe gender, age, and material boundaries can be at once liberating and devastating

Paper long abstract:

For a number of young Tunisian activists turned professional civil society agents after the revolution of 2011, the timeline and duration of the "revolutionary event" in their life can be remarkably different from official narratives of institutional transformation. Contrary to the formal historicization of the revolution, these activists designate pre-regime overthrow moments of rupture with authority from inside the patriarchal home and its respective set and linear expectations of gender roles, youth activity, and economic gratification. The narratives of these moments of rupture and their intrinsic connection to political subjectivity in the present intersect the domains of both sociality and materiality. Specifically, shifts - dramatic and momentary or subtle and gradual - within social relations turn "democracy" into the object of assessment as the potential bridge between intimate and collective types of liberation. An important usually overlooked component of this assessment is the economic confidence some activists have acquired through their involvement in post-revolutionary civil society projects. This paper argues that the generational testing of democracy as a "form of sociality" (Moore 2016) in the everyday is absolutely crucial to both the quality and durability of political transformation in Tunisia - as elsewhere. The paper posits this testing as the product of three areas of negotiation over meaning: of gender, age, and economic status. It shows that this multilayered, often agonistic and potentially unresolved negotiation turns the post-revolutionary "democratic" moment into the object of unease even among those who on the outside seem to have made the most of it.