@RGS_IBG
NO CONFERENCING AS USUAL DURING GENOCIDE! Geographical Responsibility and Scholasticide in Palestine - sign and share the pledge for
@BDSmovement
@PACBI
in our professional organisation & join on Friday for a roundtable with
@SharriPlonski
@ncpratt
@fobzu
Muna Dajani etc
Feminist philosopher and scholar Nancy Fraser from
@TheNewSchool
is uninvited by the University of Cologne
#Germany
as Albertus Magnus Professor and all planned May 2024 events are cancelled because she expressed solidarity with
#Palestine
@strikegermany
For the academics in
#Germany
kindly informing me that Nancy Fraser’s cancellation is justified because “she called for boycott”(of Israeli academic institutions) - may I recommend treatment for acute memory loss? 2022, unparalleled enthusiasm for boycott of
#Russian
institutions
Georgia Meloni and Ursula von der Leyen not only dress in unison, they share THE SAME RACIST POLITICS that has brought them to
#Tunisia
today. Speaking at a "press point" without press that illustrates the EU's complicity in authoritarian takeover as long as borders remain closed
This Afro hair salon/grocery shop in
#Tunis
has been closed for fear of police controls and racist attacks, like most commerces catering to Sub-Saharan African communities. But black inhabitants of Mansoura gradually return to public space, many for the first time since Feb 21st!
LISTEN to
@weizman_eyal
: on
#Germany
s support for Israel s genocidal war machine as a matter of theology (*blind* faith) - linked intimately to the refusal to comprehend the holocaust in continuity with other forms of colonial violence, before or after
Empty supermarket shelves in Tunis (e.g. subsidised staples like semolina/vegetable oil) due to a crisis of payment - a situation that is likely to exacerbate with Russia/Ukraine war and soaring prices for wheat, fertiliser, veg oil...for background read,
This is the German minister of education and research (FDP liberal party)👇🏽quoting a BILD article (right-wing tabloid) that defames student movement for Palestine at German universities as Israel- and Jew-hating “radicalized mob” & condemns academic staff standing in solidarity
Das Statement der Lehrenden in Berlin erschüttert. Statt sich klar gegen Israel- und Judenhass zu stellen, werden Uni-Besetzer zu Opfern gemacht und Gewalt verharmlost. Weder
#Antisemitismus
noch Gewalt dürfen toleriert werden.
It is 7°cold tonight in
#Tunis
with a frosty breeze and as we were delivering food/basic necessities to migrants' houses we met numerous others out in the cold, just evicted, women carrying their babies, suitcases and other belongings and looking for temporary shelter
It is 10° cold in
#Tunis
and dozens of migrants, including pregnant women and small children, sleep rough in front of the Côte d'Ivoire embassy and
@IOM_Tunisia
tonight - some hoping for repatriation and others looking for shelter and assistance as they have been evicted
What a joke
@ABaerbock
- 112 days into the world’s most meticulously documented
#genocide
and just before the
#ICJ
ruling on preliminary measures
#Germany
is suddenly “worried” about “desperate conditions in Khan Younis” and wakes up to “rules” and “humanitarian law” in warfare
Ich bin äußerst besorgt über die verzweifelte Lage der Menschen in Khan Yunis. Auch beim Recht auf Selbstverteidigung gibt es Regeln & beim Kampf gegen Terror gilt humanitäres
#V
ölkerrecht. Das muss Israels Regierung genauso einhalten, wie alle anderen Staaten auf der Welt. 1/3
BOILING WITH ANGER - ANOTHER visa refusal from
#France
for a Tunisian assistant professor invited (and awarded funding!) to present research at the
@GisMoyenOrient
conference in
#Lyon
this July. STOP ORGANISING CONFERENCES ON MENA IN EUROPE !!!
Want to see how broken public discourse in
#Germany
really is? While families starve to death in
#Gaza
, German politicians - including Berlin’s mayor - accuse the award-winning Israeli-Palestinian film team
@berlinale
of antisemitism for calling for an end of the
#GazaGenocide
The Berlinale Documentary Award, funded by rbb, goes to “No Other Land” by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor. Congratulations!
Discover all info on the winners, awards, and juries here:
For many who call
#Tunisia
home (in diverse ways), the past week has felt deeply demoralizing - but in the midst of it all, there are also moments of rare beauty, bringing together unexpected coalitions of very different people that can suddenly stand, act and even laugh together
It is 10° cold in
#Tunis
and dozens of migrants, including pregnant women and small children, sleep rough in front of the Côte d'Ivoire embassy and
@IOM_Tunisia
tonight - some hoping for repatriation and others looking for shelter and assistance as they have been evicted
Interrupting days of obsessive news reading/debate scrolling on Tunisia to present, "The Fripe as Urban Economy: Market- and Space-Making in Tunis", now officially a PhD thesis
The criminalisation of spaces of migrant culture & sociality these days in
#Germany
under the guise of combating (extreme interpretation of IHRA-) antisemitism happens ostensibly in the context of
#Gaza
but in fact in congruence with the dismantling of immigration and asylum laws
Razzia im linken migrantischen Cafe Karanfil
Heute gab es im Neuköllner safe Space Cafe Karanfil für linke migrantische Menschen eine Razzia. Karanfil ist vor allem ein Ort der kurdischen linken Diaspora, die sich gegen IS in Nord Syrien, gegen die rechte Regierung in der
Tunisian NGOs report that over the past 2 weeks > 400 Sub-Saharan Africans have been arbitrarily arrested and held in the Bouchoucha detention centre, up to 7 days without access to lawyers - despite showing e.g. refugee cards,documents proving asylum/return procedures in process
Sub-Saharan folks with and without paperwork, guest workers or students, all being randomly arrested!
This is really not a question of "legality" (whatever the fuck that is)
This is a question of state-supported racial discrimination and violence
#Tunisia
Exactly this👇🏼: in
#Tunisia
where
#Germany
invested heavily in arts/culture/civil society post-2011 the work of political foundations the Goethe institute and many GIZ projects has become impossible as partners refuse cooperation, events are cancelled or boycotted & staff resigns
For decades, Germany worked hard to meticulously expand its soft power through scholarships, arts, and cultural institutions. Only for the German government to unravel decades of work and positive global branding in a mere few months. It is truly astonishing to observe.
BILNAS
@LibyanStudies
awarded me a postdoctoral writing fellowship for my book project on the
#fripe
in
#Tunis
2023/24
I will share some stories of market-making with surplus clothing today
📆 Tues 16 April, 5pm (UK time) Register:
This article just out in EPA
@economyandspace
is a long labour of love for one of my dearest guides to the
#Tunis
#fripe
economy who patiently shared her factory routines commutes and lunch boxes with me to write about feminisation and used clothes sorting
Nancy Fraser's signature of the Nov8 '23 'Philosophy for Palestine' statement is the only reason given by
@UniCologne
to deplatform her as Albertus Magnus Professor (rector Dr. Joybrato Mukherjee notifies her in email) - another blatant violation of academic freedom in
#Germany
Feminist philosopher and scholar Nancy Fraser from
@TheNewSchool
is uninvited by the University of Cologne
#Germany
as Albertus Magnus Professor and all planned May 2024 events are cancelled because she expressed solidarity with
#Palestine
@strikegermany
Grateful for
#Tunis
skies granting momentary relief from pictures of journalists shut out of the new parliament, migrant boats adrift after the coast guard removed their engines, and over a hundred people spending their third week in a makeshift camp in front of
@IOM_Tunisia
We have sunk low. Then lower. Now so low you realise what you considered a race to the bottom by the
#EU
trampling its alleged principles is in fact infinite. As fascists and heirs of colonisers sign a treaty with
#Tunisia
's racist autocracy while migrants starve in the desert.
Ahead of
#Israel
s ground invasion of Rafah - turned into one massive refugee camp already under bombardment by
#IDF
German newspaper
@DIEZEIT
calls military campaign against “last city in
#Gaza
under Hamas control” a strategic necessity - sickening. an open call for
#genocide
Ist inzwischen eigentlich akzeptiert, dass Journalismus zu I/P in Deutschland das deckungsgleiche Nachplappern der Zielsetzungen einer rechtsextremen Regierung meint, oder spielt vlt noch *irgendwas* anderes eine Rolle?
A list of 20 short stories by Palestinian authors, translated to English and available open access online - curated by
@arablit
Including the powerful, often heart-wrenching writing of Ghassan Kanafani (here a previously untranslated story!)
So grateful to
@JehadAbusalim
for having the strength and generosity to share his memories and inspiring stories - of Refa’at, the power of passionate teaching and language; and of railway tracks in
#Gaza
being repurposed as separation barriers by Israel (+untiring host
@4Bassam
)
#Tunis
marching today against president Kais Saied’s hate speech that unleashed a wave of racist, anti-black violence - against the backdrop of unprecedented political crackdown against the opposition/independent media/activists in
#Tunisia
The statement of this year’s fantastic
#DreamCity
festival in
#Tunis
against racist and violent anti-migrant policies by the EU and president Kais Saied in
#Tunisia
is artistically sophisticated and intellectually nuanced, yet also unequivocal, urgent and courageous
#Lafayette
stories - crumbling warehouses, house walls bearing witness to disappeared neighboring beauties, and modernist buildings slowly sinking into the swampy grounds of what once belonged to the
#Tunis
wetlands
What once again makes headlines as popular anti-migrant & anti-black violence in
#Sfax
#Tunisia
must urgently be linked to a broader chain of violence implicating first and foremost
#EU
border externalisation policies and then the Tunisian security forces and president Kais Saied
Plusieurs centaines de personnes ont manifesté samedi près de Sfax, dans le centre de la Tunisie, pour réclamer "le départ" et l'évacuation "rapide" des milliers de migrants d'Afrique subsaharienne installés dans cette région
First donations are already being used for emergency aid and more funding will be required to help pay the March rent of those unable to work/made jobless over the past week, to avoid even more migrants becoming homeless in
#Tunis
Crucial background reading on worsening food shortages in
#Tunisia
as the country awaits IMF loan, faces crisis of payment/foreign reserves - a situation that could worsen as 50-60% of wheat imports come from Ukraine,
@FadilAliriza
for
@MeshkalTn
Sub-Saharan African migrants are leaving
#Tunisia
in a rush, investing their last resources in the risky crossing of the Mediterranean, escaping the catastrophic situation they have been living for the past two weeks
#Tunisia
: Coast Guard units in
#Sfax
,
#Kerkennah
,
#Mahdia
and
#Sousse
, on Thursday night, thwarted 25 "illegal sea border crossings" and rescued 1,008 irregular migrants: 54 Tunisians and 954 from Sub-Saharan
#Africa
, the spokesperson for the NationaLGuard said Friday.
#TAP_En
In
#Tunisia
, even the most banal encounters with the state - often through its administration and bureaucracy - can be nerve-racking and humiliating for all citizens. This should tell us something about the prolonged 'irregularity' of diverse migrant populations in the country...
While men, women and small children sleep in makeshift camps in this cold
#Tunis
winter night in front of the
@IOM_Tunisia
and
@UNHCR
office after having lost their jobs and being evicted 👇
#Tunisia
: FM Nabil Ammar said at a meeting with the
#UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights the
#Tunisian
authorities "guarantee strict respect for human rights & Tunisian legislation, unlike what is deliberately reported with the aim of not disclosing responsibilities."
#TAP_En
Join us next week at
@RGS_IBG
in
#London
to explore changing landscapes of industrial production - from Brunswick to Yubari to Mumbai; and from brick kilns on the Nile to garment manufacturing zones in the Jordanian desert, with
@maansiparpiani
@cortenph
@nith1989
@ljmabon
Such un unbelievable disgrace for
#German
academia - killing what is left of critical scholarship at galactic speed. A cheap smear campaign from right-wing press ends academic careers. Successfully shocking the rest into silence and making the outspoken few pack their bags
The anti-black/-migrant violence in the streets of
#Sfax
is not ‘spontaneous popular mob violence’ - it is politically constructed at diff. scales - eg by
#Tunisia
s MPs who blame the current health crisis on migrants to avoid discussing medicine shortages
For all those who argue "it has become too difficult to follow" - read this brief editorial that sets out the "relentless landscape of terror"(on-going Nakba) Israel has unleashed in Palestine this year for
@PalStudies
by
@shereneseikaly
and Rachid Khalidi
On the arrest of 10 public figures in
#Tunisia
since last Saturday, following a day of anger/protest by Tunisian journalists against intensifying crackdown yesterday, by
@IgnitionUK
This is shameless. Not a single statement (nor action) by UNHCR
@Refugees
since Kais Saied's hate speech resulted in unlawful arrests and violence against registered refugees in
#Tunisia
>7 weeks ago, and now a press release deploring an 'attack' on their premises without context
Le HCR
@Refugees
en
#Tunisie
se dit "profondément troublé par les incidents violents [...], lorsque des réfugiés, demandeurs d'asile et migrants ont pénétré dans ses locaux, causant des dégâts matériels et entraînant des interactions tendues avec les forces de police locales".
@Tatiana_Thieme
waking up the
#RGSIBG23
crowd
@RGS_IBG
today with hustle geographies from
#Nairobi
to
#London
that unsettle normative ways of working in, navigating and inhabiting cities and that escape capture by the logics of capitalist extraction that produce them
Join us for a session on "discard economies and dynamics of valuation in times of crisis" at the forthcoming RGS-IBG conference 2022
@UniofNewcastle
with
@JulesCorwin
, find CfP here:
Funding campaign to help pay for emergency accommodation, medicine and medical care, and food and other basic necessities for SSA migrants who have been evicted or cannot leave their houses to get to work due to security concerns in
#Tunisia
Widespread reporting of the sacking of Sub-Saharan African workers and expulsions of SSA students and migrants from rental accommodation across Greater Tunis - associations providing emergency shelter are scrambling to find solutions for the most vulnerable
#Tunisia
Tunisian NGOs report that over the past 2 weeks > 400 Sub-Saharan Africans have been arbitrarily arrested and held in the Bouchoucha detention centre, up to 7 days without access to lawyers - despite showing e.g. refugee cards,documents proving asylum/return procedures in process
Donna Shalala - president of
@TheNewSchool
- replies to
@UniCologne
’s shameful cancellation of Nancy Fraser, taking a strong stance in defence of academic freedom and solidarity with
#Palestine
“As you well know we rescued intellectuals seeking refuge from the Nazis…”
Only a 15min sunny walk from
@RGS_IBG
to the
@balticgateshead
and Mounira Al Solh’s exhibition on (woven) female narratives of crisis and displacement in
#Lebanon
In love with the Ammani take on Modernism/Modern Architecture/Art Deco. While elements of it take one back to downtown parts of
#Tunis
#Beirut
and
#Cairo
, it also carries a distinct and beautiful
#Amman
signature
European migration policies have transformed both the Northern and Southern shore of the Mediterranean into sites of endless violence, from
#Crotone
to
#Tunis
A sports hall was turned into a funeral hall for the 66 people who were found dead after the shipwreck in
#Crotone
.
After the serious shipwreck off Lampedusa in 2013, EU politicians said: "This must never happen again."
Europe, these deaths are yours!
Fellow ethnographers of MENA - submit your abstract to our panel
@OfficialBrismes
until December 1st and join
@HarrygPettit
and myself in discussing story-telling as a critical tool for (un-)knowing 'the economy'
Call for papers for a session I am organising with
@katharinagrneis
for the
@OfficialBrismes
Middle East Studies conference next July on ethnographies of MENA economies. Please spread in your networks and reach out if you have questions :)
Only in
#Tunisia
: traditional hammam with hot springs in 2000 year old Roman basins in the midst of temple remnants and the breathtaking views of Oued Mellègue (El Kef)
It's been two weeks since KS's anti-migrant speech and some have lost everything as a result of it. A woman I met tonight was first evicted from her home, then from the workshop she rented for her tailoring business, and now faces yet again eviction from her temporary shelter.
During
#Ramadan
, the beautiful staircases of Lafayette in central
#Tunis
turn into sought-after spaces of rest and refuge, so whenever I leave or enter my apartment I cause momentary shock and terror - interrupting a hushed lunch break, timid kiss, or deep inhale from a cigarette
Day 3 of the
#MECAMTravelingAcademy
in Nabeul - peer-review sessions on border economies, migrant mobilities, (urban) governance and female work/labour in Tunisia
@MecamOffice
Instead of contextualising the on-going violence that has forced Sub-Saharan African migrants and refugees to camp out in front of
@IOM_Tunisia
and UNHCR for >1month and demand evacuation, press reports focus on migrants attacking pedestrians and cars
No one puts it as succinctly as
@4noura
- take 4 min to understand what tragedy the world is facing in
#Rafah
as
#Israel
completes the
#Gaza
Nakba to depopulate the strip - while the internat community has chosen not to use “the arsenal of diplomatic means to end this
#genocide
”
Visa refusals - e.g. for attending the
@GisMoyenOrient
conference
#Lyon
- that systematically exclude MENA scholars from conversations ABOUT their region in Europe render momentarily visible to red passport holders what is in fact a continuous bureaucratic nightmare & humiliation
Read Katharina Grüneisl's piece, Countering “Fripisation:” Competing Forms of Order-Making in Tunis’ Second-Hand Markets, published in POMEPS Studies 49: Urban Politics in the Middle East!
Migrants who have lost their jobs over the past weeks are looking desperately for work across
#Tunis
. A young man in Aouina said today that while “we always worked for salaries Tunisians wouldn’t accept, now it feels like we should work for free, because all we bring is trouble”
Excellent reporting, as usual, by
@HaifaMz
and colleagues for
@inkyfada
on racist violence and police deportations of Sub-Saharan African migrants and refugees from
#Sfax
to the Libyan and Algerian border over the past week
#Tunisia
Too good to be true👇🏽: reacting to a right-wing tabloid press defamation campaign by sacking one of the most reputed anthropologists in
#Germany
because the German interpretation of
#democracy
= Staatsraison = enforced conformity for all, to avoid polarization
@maxplanckpress
#Germany
s Minister of Justice (!) declares calls for a ceasefire and an end of arms deliveries to
#Israel
@berlinale
"antisemitic agitation" and seriously threatens artists - including Jewish Israelis - with criminal prosecution. Another milestone in GER's new authoritarianism
Die
#Berlinale
hat dieses Wochenende schweren Schaden genommen. Antisemitismus ist unerträglich und kann keinen Platz haben - schon gar nicht dort, wo es um den freien Austausch von Meinungen und Kultur gehen soll. Antisemitische Hetze ist keine in Deutschland geschützte Meinung.
Forced to explain the cause of medicine, rice and coffee shortages in
#Tunisia
to the
#Jordan
customs to account for the contents of my suitcase but getting approval to transport all sorts of labneh (&derivatives) in my hand luggage to the (sheep)milk-deprived Maghreb
The story of two women from Karantina - the working-class neighbourhood adjacent to the Beirut port, recorded as part of a larger effort by
@ZahraHankir
to archive stories of survivors of the Beirut blast:
4 more days to catch the inspiring exhibition Maps of Dignity - خرائط الكرامة by
@ERC_DREAM
at
@FestDreamCity
festival in
#Tunis
- research on contestation visualised and recounted through diverse forms of (counter-)mapping on the crumbling walls of Dar Ben Achour
Aid al Kebir in
#Tunisia
this year comes as a source of intense financial stress and economic anxiety - as price inflation puts the traditional sheep (or even meat) out of reach for many families or forces them to borrow to avoid the humiliation of not being able to slaughter
No one walks and writes
#Beirut
like
@CAmmoun
. In this beautiful series of 12 urban walks, he invites us to (re)discover the city - with all its complex layers, materialities and metabolisms. And in the urban detail, we find 'the world' - questions of universal importance
Beyrouth dans le monde est une série de douze chroniques publiées dans
@LOrientLeJour
entre février 2022 et mars 2023. Ces douze textes visent à placer Beyrouth au cœur des problématiques de notre monde contemporain.
#beyrouthdanslemonde
#thread
⬇️
Nancy Fraser: "
#Germany
s unqualified support of the state of
#Israel
is a betrayal of Judaism (...) reducing it to a hyper-ultra-nationalism that is currently destroying the
#Gaza
strip" - "I am not repentant, I just signed another letter against
#Israel
's scholasticide"
As Nancy Fraser spoke to me about her recent cancellation at the University of Cologne, she explained why she considers Germany's unconditional allegiance to Israel to be a betrayal. And why she’s far from repentant about signing open letters in solidarity with Palestine.
@FadhelKaboub
on the root causes of the current political situation in
#Tunisia
: an extractive economic development model - unchanged since the 70s - driving a debt spiral, undermining food & energy sovereignty and producing mass unemployment & brain drain
I will present my research on the Fripe (used clothing economy) and urban transformations in Tunis in conversation with
@isabel_ruck
@CarepParis
next Tuesday, October 11th at 6:30pm
🗣️ CONFÉRENCE | "L’économie de la fripe à Tunis : quels impacts sur la ville ?"
👉 Avec
@katharinagrneis
, chercheure au Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale de l’
@EHESS_fr
Modération :
@isabel_ruck
📆 mardi 11 octobre 2022 à 18h30 en présentiel
Investigative journalism at its best - Tunisian/Italian collaboration between
@inkyfada
@AidaDelpuech
and
@irpinvestigates
to unveil the vast politico-economic networks behind imports of Italian waste to Tunisia
Incredible new book by
@Imanmersal
not only for
#Cairo
lovers - on a writer’s search for another writer, the power of female friendship, and the transformative experience of uncovering stories below the surface of cities we love (thank you
@A_M_Nassar
)
Numerous break-ins targeting Sub-Saharan African migrants across
#Tunis
since last week deprive them of vital provisions, clothing and even cooking gas. While police protection was always absent, state-sanctioned violence has propagated a new feeling of complete impunity.