Tunisia : mass tourism in crisis?

Successive governments in post-colonial Tunisia have sought to develop mass tourism as an avenue for social and economic development. Political instability and increasing media coverage have more recently led to a dramatic reduction in foreign tourist arrivals. Tunisia provides insights into the intersections of modernity, mass tourism, authoritarianism and terrorism, and in a world marred by terrorist attacks it becomes increasingly important to analyse the specific contexts from which these emerge. This chapter aims to address some of these issues by evaluating mass tourism development in Tunisia, highlighting the social and economic advances Tunisia has achieved, before analysing the situation since the Jasmine revolution of 2011. In order to fully analyse mass tourism in Tunisia, we draw on our own experience, which includes over 30 years of research in Tunisia, and fieldwork carried out shortly after the March 2015 Bardo Museum attack in the capital city Tunis. Finally, the chapter looks towards the future of mass tourism in Tunisia, arguing that while mass tourism has delivered positive advances, if it is to continue to do so the industry must be diversified and adapted to meet new needs

Success of Digital Activism: Roles of Structures and Media Strategies

This research explored how the structures of digital activist movements (movement causes, target audience, and duration) and the strategic use of media applications affected their final outcomes. Survey data from the 2013 Global Digital Activism Data Set (Digital Activism Research Project) were supplemented with insights from four professional interviewees who had experience and knowledge about activism in both offline and digital fora as well as several case studies of successful and unsuccessful digital movements. The mixed methods analyses offered three insights. Digital activism about human right and political issues was less likely to succeed than ones about civic development concerns. Activism that targeted governments was also less likely to succeed than if the targets were informal groups/individuals or institutions/organizations. These findings were supported by the structural inequality axiom. In addition, as predicted by the value-added proposition in social movement theory, the strategic use of media applications (using public media applications for collaboration purposes) as well as multiple fora (combining online and offline) increased the possibility of activism’s success. Sample case studies were used to illustrate the broad contours of the survey findings

Speech by H.E. Amani Abeid Karume former President of Zanzibar on recent developments in North Africa; impact on the Arab World, Africa and the world at large, lessons learned

This is the archive of a speech on developments in North Africa given by President Karume of Zanzibar, APC's 7th President in Residence, on March 10, 2011

Tunisian Push for Democracy: Successes, Failures, and Lessons

This report is the summation of research in Tunisia during the summer of 2011, just after the Jasmine Revolution of January. It seeks to identify the causal factors that have hindered or helped the success of the transition process, and to orient them in the wider literature on democratic transitions, as well as provide further ideas for research regarding the Arab Spring. Initially, the Tunisian political process suffered extensively from problems determined by the structure of the previous regime, such as elite polarization, crises of legitimacy, and popular mistrust/disillusionment. Recently, however, Tunisian society has taken steps in overcoming these problems, adapting quicker than most literature predicts. The recent trends may suggest that a diffusion of political experience, enabled by international connections and social media, may have played an important role in contributing to the success of democratic transition int Tunisia

Speech by H.E. Amani Abeid Karume former President of Zanzibar on recent developments in North Africa; impact on the Arab World, Africa and the world at large, lessons learned

This is the archive of a speech on developments in North Africa given by President Karume of Zanzibar, APC's 7th President in Residence, on March 10, 2011

‘I’m ugly, but gentle’: performing ‘little character’ in post-Mao Chinese comedies

Stars are often associated with glamour and beauty, but in this paper I would like to question how the concept of “chou” (literally meaning ugliness) is embraced in contemporary Chinese cinema. The popularity of chouxing (ugly star) in the Chinese cinema since the late 1980s has challenged the star system in Chinese film industry during the previous decades when a male actor’s handsome appearance was regarded as an important criterion for him being cast as a leading man. Directing the public attention to a male star’s physical appearance by stressing the attributive adjective chou, this newly-coined word raises a question: how the cinematic emphasis on a male star’s physical appearance engages with the social construction of a star’s screen charisma under the transnational context? To answer the question, this article takes Ge You (b.1957) as a case study and explores the star’s impersonation of xiao renwu (little character) in Chinese comedies. I argue that the Chinese cinema’s emphasis of a chouxing’s physical appearance is a visual manifest of the character’s imperfectness and ordinariness. Nonetheless, despite the fact that the cinematic emphasis of the star’s unattractive appearance often signifies a little character’s unprivileged social status, it neither marginalises nor makes the character a social outsider. Instead, the imperfectness and ordinariness has endowed the little character with the power as an insider of the Chinese society

Spartan Daily, February 27, 2014

Volume 142, Issue 14https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/1474/thumbnail.jp

The Jasmine Revolution and the Tourism Industry in Tunisia

Introduction: The tourism industry is one of the most important industries in the world since it employs “more than 250 million people worldwide” (Coshall, 2003, p. 4). This industry, which includes transport, lodging, and catering, is expected to generate $12,119 billion of revenues and 279,346,000 jobs in 2016 (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, 2006). The tourism industry worldwide is also expected to indirectly and directly contribute 10.9% to Gross Domestic Product (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, 2006). However, the tourism industry is an extremely sensitive and vulnerable activity which can be impacted significantly by important events such as terrorism, political insecurity, and natural disasters (Coshall, 2003). This is exactly what happened to Tunisia. Tunisia is a small country located in North Africa. According to some, it is a “strategically irrelevant country” with no oil or natural resources (Mihailovich & Sommer, 2011). However, Tunisia functions thanks to tourism which is crucial to the economy (Ansamed, 2011). Consequently, in order to boost the economy of Tunisia, the government and tourism authorities should examine the impact of the Jasmine Revolution on the tourism industry in order to determine how the industry in Tunisia can recover from the revolution

Spartan Daily, February 27, 2014

Volume 142, Issue 14https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/1474/thumbnail.jp