Becoming in Diachrony

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores the protestscape of protestscapes, Tunisia’s 2011 revolution. It demonstrates how the diachrony of Tunisian protest unfolds. Time and space collapse as counter-memories, learned protest competencies, deepening socio-economic marginalization and political exclusion all come to a head. The revolution sparked in Tunisia’s Southern peripheries was decades in the making. Diverse and situated protestscapes converged into a Bakhtinian-type “carnival” turning reigning power relations and patterns of meaning-making upside down. The empirical analysis drawing on Tunisian newspapers, published testimonies, and interviews suggests that Ben Ali’s departure did not mark the revolution’s end. The Kasbah 1 and 2 sit-ins cemented popular demands for freedom and dignity. Protestors displayed a maturing agency, affect, and cognition of cresting peoplehood, further institutionalizing the emptying out of the authoritarian center. The analysis concretizes the strategies and experiences of nationwide popular protest in which human suffering and sacrifice loom large. It also hints at the incompleteness and indeterminacy of revolution as democratization commences.