Paper short abstract:

This paper will assess how, during the so-called 'Liberal period' of Italian colonization of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, Jabal Nafusa reaffirmed its crucial role in the Western region long-term power dynamics for the very fact of being a frontier area confronting more centralized logics of power.

Paper long abstract:

At the outset of 1910s European intra-imperial competition led to the reorganization of North Africa's internal boundaries, resulting in the French-Ottoman agreement of 1910 establishing the border between Tripolitania and Tunisia. Long before European colonial penetration in North Africa, Tripolitanians groups had often crossed the area ranging from Jabal Nafusa to the coastal town of Zwara during periods of famine or droughts. And, after the establishment of French protectorate over Tunisia, they continued reproducing these long time migratory patterns throughout the second half of the XIX century, when Tripolitanian witnessed a gradual economic decline resulting from the trans-Saharan trade routes crises. At the end of 1911, the Italian occupation of Ottoman Tripolitania and Cyrenaica marked the beginning of a new phase of political and economic crisis in which Jabal Nafusa became the pivotal center of Tripolitania resistance. Indeed, its geography allowed anti-Italian leaders to leverage on the inter-imperial competition opposing French and Italy to their own purposes, by acting through boundaries whose acceptance or refusal was strictly connected to the affirmation of colonial sovereignty. This paper will assess how, between 1911 and 1918, Jabal Nafusa reaffirmed its crucial role in Tripolitania long-term power dynamics for the very fact of being a frontier area confronting more centralized logics of power. Indeed, practically disposing of the frontier served both Tunisian and Tripolitania's local resistance groups for constantly challenging the legitimacy of their respective colonial powers, either questioning colonial boundaries or exploiting their recognition as a political exchange weapon.