Project description
Insights into the nuanced dynamics of colonialism
During the colonial period in Tunisia and Libya, the presence of marginalised Europeans disrupted conventional colonial hierarchies. This challenged the binary divide between colonisers and the colonised, raising questions about identity and power dynamics. The resulting colonial liminality remains a complex historical puzzle, underscoring the need for deeper understanding. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme, the EMMA project will conduct a trans-imperial historical analysis to explore the agency, ecology, and representations of European subalterns in the region. Specifically, it will shed light on the ambiguous position of these subalterns. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach and examining archives for various countries, it aims to demonstrate the intersections of identity, politics, and ecology within Mediterranean colonial contexts.
Objective
This research project proposes a trans-imperial historical analysis of the agency, ecology and representations of European subalterns in Tunisia and Libya during the colonial period. The presence of marginalised Europeans, mainly from Southern Europe, in Tunisian and Libyan societies challenged the dichotomy dividing the colonisers from the colonised. This colonial liminality is the fulcrum of the project European Marginals in Mediterranean Africa: Race, Space and Environment in Tunisia and Libya (1881-1950s) (EMMA). The chronological analysis framework spans the French occupation of Tunis in 1881 to the end of colonial rule in Libya (1951) and Tunisia (1956). The aim is to analyse the intermediate and ambiguous position of these subalterns to show not only the slippery boundaries of a White/non-White and European/North African identity in a Mediterranean colonial context but also how entangled these identities are with social, political and ecological frontiers and perceptions. This goal will be achieved by an interdisciplinary approach that encompasses cognate field of social sciences as history and anthropology. For this reason the project is under the joint supervision of professor Francesca Biancani, MENA area scholar from UNIBO, specialist on gender and colonial North African history; and professor Naor Ben Yehoyada, social and cultural anthropologist at CU, specialist on Mediterranean mobility. This interdisciplinary project is based on multi-archival research encompassing sources from colonial, national and private archives and journals, press and publications in Tunisia, Italy, France, United Kingdom, Malta; it consists in 7 work packages dedicated to training, management, research, dissemination and communication activities.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistory
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecology
- social sciencessociologyanthropology
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global FellowshipsCoordinator
40126 Bologna
Italy