{"title":"Beyond words: non‐dialogical public reason in (post) revolutionary Tunisia","authors":"Charis Boutieri","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.14317","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In the widely demonized municipality of Ettadhamun, the heavy hand of Zin al Abidine Ben Ali's police state was partly lifted in 2011 and replaced by the softer touch of aid promoting international democracy. This aid architecture supported the burgeoning civil society to train Ettadhamun residents in the skill of ‘interpersonal communication’ (<jats:italic>tawasul bayna al‐afrad</jats:italic>) for the purpose of managing social conflict. Yet the members of the only non‐religious association in the neighbourhood of Nogra reject the liberal recommendations of their trainers and carve out a tense neighbourhood co‐presence <jats:italic>without dialogue</jats:italic> with their Salafist neighbours. Counter‐intuitively to deliberative theories of democracy, I suggest that in this non‐dialogical co‐presence inheres a public sphere with social and political possibilities. Neighbourhood residents trade liberal argumentation for dwelling together beyond words, which does not attempt to reform one another and engenders solidarity. The suspension of dialogue reflects a minoritarian articulation of the aftermath of the 2011 revolution as ‘the reconstitutive phase of the political’. This articulation refuses the curated narrative of the postcolonial Tunisian nation and pries open the teleology of liberal democratic transition.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"81 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14317","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In the widely demonized municipality of Ettadhamun, the heavy hand of Zin al Abidine Ben Ali's police state was partly lifted in 2011 and replaced by the softer touch of aid promoting international democracy. This aid architecture supported the burgeoning civil society to train Ettadhamun residents in the skill of ‘interpersonal communication’ (tawasul bayna al‐afrad) for the purpose of managing social conflict. Yet the members of the only non‐religious association in the neighbourhood of Nogra reject the liberal recommendations of their trainers and carve out a tense neighbourhood co‐presence without dialogue with their Salafist neighbours. Counter‐intuitively to deliberative theories of democracy, I suggest that in this non‐dialogical co‐presence inheres a public sphere with social and political possibilities. Neighbourhood residents trade liberal argumentation for dwelling together beyond words, which does not attempt to reform one another and engenders solidarity. The suspension of dialogue reflects a minoritarian articulation of the aftermath of the 2011 revolution as ‘the reconstitutive phase of the political’. This articulation refuses the curated narrative of the postcolonial Tunisian nation and pries open the teleology of liberal democratic transition.
2011年,在被广泛妖魔化的埃塔达蒙市,津·阿比丁·本·阿里(Zin al - Abidine Ben Ali)的警察国家的铁拳被部分解除,取而代之的是促进国际民主的温和援助。这个援助建筑支持蓬勃发展的民间社会,以培训Ettadhamun居民的“人际沟通”技能(tawasul bayna al - afrad),以管理社会冲突。然而,Nogra附近唯一的非宗教协会的成员拒绝了他们的培训师的自由主义建议,并在没有与萨拉菲斯特邻居对话的情况下建立了紧张的社区共同存在。与民主的协商理论相反,我认为,在这种非对话的共同存在中,存在着一个具有社会和政治可能性的公共领域。邻里之间的居民用自由主义的争论来换取超越语言的共同生活,这不会试图改变彼此,而是产生团结。对话的暂停反映了2011年革命的后果是“政治的重建阶段”的少数主义表达。这种表述拒绝了对后殖民突尼斯国家的精心策划的叙述,并打开了自由民主转型的目的论。
期刊介绍:
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute is the principal journal of the oldest anthropological organization in the world. It has attracted and inspired some of the world"s greatest thinkers. International in scope, it presents accessible papers aimed at a broad anthropological readership. It is also acclaimed for its extensive book review section, and it publishes a bibliography of books received.