Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture - Current Issue

Tunisia has long been framed as both a geographic and symbolic crossroads, yet politically and institutionally it is usually cast as a space of departure rather than arrival. This paradox becomes more salient in light of the country’s evolving role as a transit zone for sub-Saharan migrants navigating ‘fragmented journeys’ towards Europe. While much academic work has examined the Maghreb’s role in these circulations, it often overlooks the experiences and self-expressed narratives of the transmigrants. Dominant discourses tend to reduce these transmigrants to passive subjects caught in transit, emphasizing structural constraints over individual agency. In contrast, this article adopts a discursive lens to examine sub-Saharan voices and investigate how transit is conceptualized not merely as a phase but as a dynamic space of ‘situated knowledges’, as per Mignolo, and identity negotiation. Hinging on scarce research on sub-Saharan transmigrants’ self-representations, I qualitatively analyse a corpus produced by sub-Saharan transmigrants on social media between 2018 and 2023. I use Doreen Massey’s conceptualization of space to deconstruct ‘transit’ as a geographic and virtual locus. Then, drawing on resources from decolonial thought, particularly Mignolo, and social actor theory, as developed by van Leeuwen, I focus on the discursive manifestations of ‘transit’ as a state of fluidity and dynamism. I examine the vehicles of solidarity and resistance through the analysis of rhetoric and discursive tactics they use to actively reconfigure transit spaces. Through digital platforms, transmigrants cultivate what Diminescu terms ‘access capital’ to articulate collective identity and enact forms of ‘epistemic disobedience’, a term theorized by Mignolo. Rather than passive victims, they emerge as mobile agents who resist being spoken for, asserting the right to define their journeys and identities on their own terms.

Tunisia’s role in the shifting dynamics of Mediterranean migration has grown significantly in the past two decades, serving both as a destination and a key transit hub for an increasing number of sub-Saharan migrants seeking to reach Europe. Among them, women have become a more prominent group, facing unique and often daunting challenges conditioned by an often unwelcoming sociopolitical climate and the gendered realities associated with intra-African migration. Against this backdrop, the article explores the experiences of twelve sub-Saharan unauthorized migrant women living in Tunis through digitally mediated storytelling workshops using Maria Tamboukou’s narrative rhythmanalysis to examine the temporal, affective and structural dimensions that shape their testimonial accounts with a specific focus on paralinguistic cues. Grounded in a decolonial framework, this study introduces the notion of ‘accented stories’, extending Shahram Khosravi’s concept of accented thinking to critically interrogate the Eurocentric imperatives of clarity and transparency that have long characterized narrative-based migration research, (re)affirming, in turn, migrants’ ‘right to opacity’. This approach thus moves beyond linear, reductionist models of knowledge production to capture the labile nature of ‘transit’ migration. Two key tropes are identified: ‘transit’ as a turbulent experience marked by (in-)voluntary immobility, and ‘transit’ as a condition that can be surmounted through acts of solidarity and strategies of ‘home-making’. Situated at the intersection of im-mobility research, digital migration scholarship and cultural studies, this article problematizes the category of ‘transit migration’, repositioning it as an embodied and affectively charged experience and a conceptual artefact produced through academic and policy discourses. As such, the dual gesture enacted in (de-)mystifying ‘transit’ encompasses both the critical dismantling of the reductive paradigms through which hegemonic actors construct it and its subversive reconfiguration through migrant women’s narratives, which imbue it with contradictions and indeterminacy. Ultimately, by reading these digitally mediated accounts metaphorically as ‘stories in transit’, I shed light on their continuous, open-ended structures, emphasizing in so doing, the migrants’ process of identity refashioning in contexts of displacement.

This article addresses the digital resistance strategies of sub-Saharan migrants living in Ariana, Tunisia. It illustrates how social media and online communication tools help them face their inhospitable world. To reach these findings, I conducted twelve semi-structured interviews and performed a thematic analysis of the transcripts for the sake of uncovering how these migrants use their smartphones and social media platforms to gather information about their migratory project. Drawing on James C. Scott’s concept of ‘everyday forms of resistance’, this article shows how sub-Saharan migrants assert agency in response to hindrances, yet without directly engaging with Tunisian citizens or authorities. The article highlights information exchange, solidarity building and selective online exposure among sub-Saharan migrants hampered by unfamiliarity with the host country’s languages, racism and economic marginalization. Through the investigation of how digital technology is employed by these migrants towards manifesting ‘subtle resistance’, the current study addresses an important gap in the literature and contributes to scholarly debates on the significance of digital technologies for south-to-south migration.

Sub-Saharan migrants and issues around ‘irregular’ migration to and through Tunisia have recently gained considerable media attention and engendered continuing public debate. Although media representation of ethnic minorities and migration has been a salient topic across different disciplines, the currently available body of research has focused on western societies with a long tradition of incoming migration. Whether their findings apply to societies in North Africa, and Tunisia in particular, has recently received increasing interest. However, little attention has been paid to the racialization of sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisian online media discourse. In this context, this study analyses the discursive strategies used to represent sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisian online news sites and how these contribute to a discriminatory discourse. The dataset consists of 50 articles, analysed using discourse analysis grounded in postcolonial theory. The findings reveal that sub-Saharans Africans are discursively constructed as undesirable through an Othering process that reproduces the ‘we–they’ dichotomy. This construction centres on discourses of racialization, illegality, violence and criminalization, as well as a counter-discourse that resists and denies accusations of racism.

The issue of illegalized migration is now more pressing than ever, particularly in regions like Europe and North Africa. Against this backdrop, this article aims to probe into the dynamics of the European Union’s policy agenda on migration within Tunisia, a key country of origin and transit for migrants crossing the European borders in an unauthorized way. Using a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis approach, the research investigates a 10,000-word corpus of the European Commission (EC) communications on this topic over the period 2017–23. Specifically, this work combines corpus linguistics methods – concordance, collocation and collocation networks – with the critical discourse analysis (CDA) notions of topoi and topics. The collocation analysis revealed the salience of the topic of legality in the Commission communications, constructing a two-part migration discourse that contrasts the perils of irregularized migration with the merits of legal alternatives. The European Union’s security vs. human rights dilemma was also clearly discernible in the corpus, critically setting securitization policies against humanitarian and democratic values. Equally important, findings uncovered the solution-oriented, pluralistic and comprehensive nature of the European approach to migration within Tunisia and the entire North African region. The study has theoretical and practical implications for the growing body of corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) on migration. Its results can also inform future EU–Tunisia public and policy discourses around the complex phenomenon of unauthorized migration, with a view to better navigating emerging challenges.

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.

This article examines shipwreck fiction through the lens of cultural studies and decolonial theory, focusing on the representation of archetypal migrant figures and their complex, often traumatic journeys across the desert and the Mediterranean Sea in Abu Bakr Khaal’s African Titanics (2014) and Walid Amri’s Les Papillons de Lampedusa: Traverseurs Clandestins (2023). Moving beyond the reductive classifications of migrants as merely ‘refugees’ or ‘economic migrants’ – categories that fail to capture the complexity of their lived experiences – this study centres on the concept of ‘mixed migrations’. In doing so, it challenges dominant narratives surrounding migration in North Africa, particularly Tunisia, and seeks to offer a more humanizing portrayal of both individual and collective experiences of those who risk their lives on the so-called ‘death boats’. Drawing on trauma studies and Patricia McManus’s concept of ‘negative commitment to the present’, the article foregrounds a current mode of dystopia that is intrinsically connected to the legacies of the past. This endeavour also demonstrates how African Titanics and Les Papillons de Lampedusa: Traverseurs Clandestins employ metaphors, allegories and hybrid genres to construct narratives from within – aesthetic forms that resist and reimagine the liminal and often violent border regimes shaping current migration debates. Ultimately, the analysis reveals how these texts illuminate the intrinsic links between migration and broader systemic issues such as war and conflict, dictatorship, terrorism, poverty, climate change and the unequal distribution of global wealth between the ‘North’ and the ‘South’.

In 2015, Tunisia decided to erect a dirt wall and to dig a trench along 250 km of its borders with Libya. The security-oriented fortification was justified by suspicious terrorist activities taking place near the Tunisian borders and putting the country’s territorial integrity under a grave threat. However, this same fortification brought to the surface multiple issues related to the obstruction of the historical flow of goods and people between the two nations, which represented a relief valve for the communities living along the borders. The situation further deteriorated in July 2023 when a group of sub-Saharan migrants expelled from the country and pushed towards Libya found themselves inhumanely trapped in the desert. The suffering of these migrants was captured by photographs taken at the borders to visually document the violence of Tunisia’s migration policy. This visual documentation fails, nevertheless, to account for different power and knowledge dynamics fuelling the novel brutality of the Tunisia–Libya borders. Drawing on decolonial theory, this article historicizes Tunisian border practices, deconstructs colonial knowledge informing today’s inhumane praxis and proposes remedies to border brutality, in harmony with the country’s heritage and ambitions.

By studying the Schengen visa regime from the perspective of applicants – ‘youth on the move’ in Tunisia – and their subjective experiences of (im)mobility and ‘stuckedness’, this article sheds light on the bordering practices of the EU border regime in post-2011 Tunisia and its entanglement with the multiple axes of power between the two shores of the Mediterranean. In this local political context, the process of externalizing the European Union’s borders is reflected upon by unpacking the labels of ‘cooperation’ and ‘Euro–Mediterranean partnership’. Indeed, the emphasis on the ‘border spectacle’ images of the undocumented sea crossing from the Maghreb to Europe, known as harga, has contributed to the prominence of the crisis discourse and the securitization of mobilities in the Mediterranean Maghreb. As a result, this setting obscured mobility inequalities and the broader extractive political economy of EU–Maghreb relations. Alternatively, this article embraces the crucial role of anthropology in challenging the inherent nature of border regimes. It adopts an ethnographic approach of ‘looking at the border from the other side’ to shift the gaze and examine the ‘regular mobilities’, governed by the Schengen visa regime. This shift in perspective enables us to examine the regime’s various invisible borders – material, symbolic and affective – and reveal the subjects they produce and their struggles.

This study investigates the transformation of Sfax’s traditional fishing communities in Tunisia, due to not only environmental degradation and declining fish stocks but also repressive migration policies that have compelled fishermen to adapt their livelihoods. Drawing on fourteen in-depth interviews conducted in August 2024 at key harbours including Sfax City, El Mahrès, El Amra, Ellouza and the Kerkennah Islands, the research reveals how long-established fishing practices have gradually given way to roles in undocumented migration networks. The analysis also highlights how overfishing, illegal fishing practices, industrial pollution and regulatory abuses have not only eroded sustainable fishing but also fostered an economic milieu in which fishermen inadvertently engaged in migrant ‘smuggling’. The findings underscore the complex interplay between state regulation, economic desperation and local agency, emphasizing the urgent need for integrated policies that simultaneously restore marine ecosystems, support artisanal livelihoods and address the multifaceted challenges of undocumented migration.

Over the past decades, migratory flows have increased significantly, prompting host countries to implement forced return policies, particularly in Tunisia. However, the failure of a migration project and forced return have serious psychological and social consequences. While much research has focused on voluntary return, scant attention has been paid to forcibly repatriated individuals following migration failure. This study aims to fill this gap by examining the psychological impacts of forced return. More specifically, this research explores migrants’ decision-making processes, the identity transformations induced by migration and forced return, and the coping mechanisms they employ. Adopting an interactionist and situated approach, the study highlights that forced return generates profound identity disruptions, linked both to the migration project and the lived migration experience. To analyse these dynamics, autobiographical interviews were conducted with ten Tunisian migrants (aged 25 to 43) who, after emigrating to a European country, were forcibly repatriated. The interview analysis reveals the evolution of identity throughout the migration and return process, as well as the specific psychological effects of involuntary repatriation on migrants’ agency and well-being. These findings highlight the challenges faced by returning migrants and underscore the need for better reintegration support.

Few studies have been conducted in Tunisia on the psychological functioning of sub-Saharan migrants. The current study aims to explore the personality domains of this population. To achieve this goal, interviews were conducted with a sample of sub-Saharan migrants (30 participants). Additionally, personality domains were assessed using the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5). The assessment focused on both the pre-migration and post-migration stages. The results indicate a significant difference in personality functioning between the pre-migration and post-migration stages. This difference pertains to both the total score and the sub-scores of the PID-5, specifically in the domains of Negative Affect, Detachment, Antagonism, Disinhibition and Psychoticism. No statistically significant differences were observed between the PID-5 scores of male and female migrants. Conversely, female migrants exhibited a significant increase in post-migration scores across all assessed personality domains while male migrants demonstrated a significant increase in only three personality domains. These findings underscore the importance of mitigating risk factors within the Tunisian context. For this purpose, the reinforcement of several identified strategies is recommended.

Review of: Displacement, Environment, and Photo-Politics in the Mediterranean, Paravati Nair (2024)

London: Routledge, 190 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-35011-619-1, h/bk, £135

Reconstructive Memory Work: Trauma, Witnessing and the Imagination of Female Descendants of Harkis, Cliona Hensey (2023)

Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 272 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-83764-476-6, h/bk, £110

The Zone: An Alternative History of Paris, Justinien Trebillion (2023)

London: Verso, 208 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-80429-404-8, h/bk, £18.99

Review of: Emergency in Transit: Witnessing Migration in the Colonial Present, Eleanor Paynter (2024)

Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 296 pp.,

ISBN 978-0-52040-290-4, p/bk, £25