Italians in Tunisia: between regional organisation, cultural adaptation and political division, 1860s–1940

Abstract

This article analyses the case of the Italian community in Tunisia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Italian presence in Tunisia dates back to the age of the so-called Repubbliche marinare (Maritime Republics), when Italy was still not a unitary entity, but rather a collection of states that had their own relationships with the Ottoman Empire. The Italian community in Tunisia is an example of a diaspora resulting from migrations in the Mediterranean region. The case study of the Italians in Tunisia is a sort of ‘diaspora from inside’. Indeed it is reductive to see Italians in Tunisia just as nationals, because they had different regional, religious, class and cultural backgrounds to native Tunisians. Local identities characterised their community. This perspective is also apparent in the multitude of mutual-aid associations and ethnic organisations. A heterogeneous group, including political refugees, emerged. Nonetheless, during the twentieth century the ‘defence of italianità’ reinforced the cohesion of the community itself. This paper places this group into the framework of Mediterranean Studies. It aims to understand the interaction between the Italian community in Tunisia and the native population. It follows philosopher Albert Memmi's perspective on the unrelated relationship between the coloniser and the colonised. This relationship represented an interesting example of unusual tolerance thanks to a steady relationship between Italians and the Tunisian population, characterised by openness and profitable coexistence, even in the sphere of religion, which was not the case in other areas of Mediterranean sea.