| Tunisian Revolutions: Reflections on Seas, Coasts, and Interiors Contributor(s): Clancy-Smith, Julia (Author) |
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ISBN: 162616231X ISBN-13: 9781626162310 Publisher: Georgetown University Press OUR PRICE: $12.82 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2014 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Political Science | World - African - Political Science | International Relations - General |
| Physical Information: 0.15" H x 6" W x 9" (0.24 lbs) 52 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - African |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In December 2010 an out-of-work Tunisian merchant, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire and precipitated the Arab Spring. Popular interpretations of Bouazizi's self-immolation viewed economic and political despair as the root of the Tunisian revolution, but as Julia Clancy-Smith points out Tunisia's long history of revolutions and protest movements presents a far more complicated set of causes. Proposing a conceptual framework of "coastalization" v. "interiorization," Clancy-Smith examines Tunisia's last two centuries and demonstrates how geographical and environmental and social factors also lie behind that country's volatile history. Within this framework Clancy-Smith explores how Tunisia's coast became a Mediterranean playground for transnational elites, a mecca of tourism, while its interior agrarian regions suffered increasing neglect and marginalization. This distinction has had a profound impact on the fate of Tunisia, and has manifested itself in divisive debates over politics and religion and gender that have lead to a series of mass civic actions that continue to this day. Clancy-Smith proposes a fresh historical lens through which to view the relationship between spacial displacements, regionalization, and transnationalism. |