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Accepted Paper:
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the efforts of civil society organizations and informal groups against racial discrimination in post-revolutionary Tunisia. It explores local civil society initiatives, African migrants' lived realities and the activists' experiences of hope, disillusionment and perseverance.
Paper long abstract:
In 2018, Tunisia adopted the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Act (or Law 50/2018) to criminalize the ages-long, yet hitherto silenced, practices of racial discrimination in society. The latter have targeted ethnic minorities, including the racialized black Tunisians and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa in different areas of everyday life, including schooling, labor market and public political life. The legislation came against the backdrop of the popular revolution of 2010-11 that raised public hopes for socioeconomic justice, equality and representative democratic politics, as well as violent attacks on sub-Saharan migrants, instigating civil society formations to campaign for racial equality and minority rights. In addition to a small number of court rulings, the law remains to be implemented until today. This paper examines the campaigning efforts by civil society organizations and informal groups before and after the adoption of the Law 50/2018. It explores the interfaces between local civil society initiatives and migrants’ lived realities, and the ways in which civil society actors narrate their experiences of hope, disillusionment and perseverance in terms of their pursuit of racial justice and fight against the racial discrimination in post-revolutionary Tunisia.
Transgressive futures: movements across sub-Saharan and North Africa
Session 1 Thursday 1 June, 2023, -