Tunisia’s peripheral cities: Marginalization and protest politics in a democratizing country

Abstract

This article investigates Tunisia's southern "periphery within the periphery," drawing on original interviews to examine marginalization and center-periphery relations in the country since the 2011 revolution. Comparisons are drawn between the informal economy of cross-border smuggling in Ben Guerdane and the jobless youth of Tataouine being left behind as corporate elites and companies become wealthy from the natural resources extracted from the area. This had led to an embrace of "unruly" protest politics, rebelling against the postrevolutionary political establishment. A trend toward disillusionment with democracy might be on the horizon for the marginalized youth in the south, exacerbating regional cleavages and posing a potential crisis for Tunisia's democratization.