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1-2: In Transit: Mapping Digital and Transnational Narratives across Tunisian Borderlands
  • ISSN: 2040-4344
  • E-ISSN: 2040-4352

Abstract

This article investigates Tunisia’s role in contemporary migration to challenge dominant narratives that portray it as a gateway toward Europe. Adopting a Southern perspective focused on intra-African mobility, it analyses the concept of transit migration as an ambiguous and Eurocentric category that shapes new ways of governing human mobility within and beyond the Mediterranean. In this fashion, the article offers a novel interpretation of current migration governance and advances a theoretical shift that frames hypermobility as an emerging governmental rationality. Drawing on a political-philosophical approach, it explores how mobility is not merely discouraged or suppressed; on the contrary, it is increasingly fostered and exploited within the framework of bio-capitalism. Through a reinterpretation of Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, the article frames mobility not as a secondary outcome of border regimes, but as a key method of investigation for analysing contemporary forms of power, control and resistance.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • 2022 PRIN project ‘Exploring Resilience: Vulnerability, Social Security, Political Inclusion. Promoting a Sustainable Transition based on Local Practices and Governance’ (Award 2022YK45F9_001 – CUP B53D23010990006)
  • British Academy International Writing Workshops 2022 under the project ‘Migrants in transit: A transdisciplinary writing programme for emerging scholars of migration in Tunisia’ (Award WW22\100216)
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2025-09-22
2026-04-21

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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): biopolitics; border regimes; differential inclusion; Eurocentrism; hypermobility; south–south migration; Tunisia

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