L'Espace Politique (Jun 2023)
Travailler la terre oasienne
Abstract
Central resource of oasian agriculture, agricultural workforce remains quite inaudible, both in the academic field and in post-2011 public debates in Tunisia. Based on the case of Tozeur and Gabes, this article aims to cross the perspectives of workers and landowners in the oases on the role of agricultural workforce, in order to highlight the emergence of a localized conflict, rooted in renegotiated power relations. Marked by environmental issues and specific dynamics of post-2011 protests in Tunisia, the oases case study illustrates the complex quest towards more social justice by a dominated group such as agricultural workers, who possess key know-how for oasian agriculture and its sustainability. After a presentation of the factors and effects of this conflict in Gabes and Tozeur, and the analysis of the divergent territorialities of the different actors with regard to agricultural work, we focus on the khammes’s situation, sharecroppers to the fifth in Tozeur, so as to highlights the ambivalence of a social movement characterized both by its fragility outside the palm groves, and by its strong anchoring inside the gardens.
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