Trace of a Revolution

Abstract

Abstract This chapter introduces the book’s main aims, situating them against the backdrop of existing research on revolutions and on Tunisia. After critically engaging with the Euro-American corpus of revolutionary theory (termed here “metropolitan revolution,” it presents the argument of the book. First, Tunisia’s revolution must be studied in the longue durée, exploring various synchronic “protestscapes” across the diachrony of the country’s revolutionary milieu. Second, the agentic, affective, and cognitive dimensions of peoplehood come to the fore through protest. Third, peoplehood and revolution co-construct one another in a “twin ferment.” Next, the chapter positions the book’s investigation as an interdisciplinary endeavor and a postcolonial corrective to reigning “epistemic injustice” in research on Arab revolution. Then, the chapter maps out the book’s ontological moorings, explaining its interpretivist epistemology and methodology. Finally, it closes with a substantive overview of the book’s chapters.