ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of tribal/management councils (T/MCs) in the social transformation of the people and communities of the Tunisian hinterlands followed by a brief case study of the Nefzaoua region. Drawing from the framework of “uneven and combined development” and invoking Chakrabarty’s call to “provincialize Europe,” I demonstrate the tensions that arose when the tribal mode of foreign relations was confronted with the imposition of the capitalist mode of production. I argue that the co-optation of the traditional myaad system of resource allocation and conflict resolution—historically an informal institution that maintained the cohesion of the tribal social formation—was ultimately used by the French colonial and successive Tunisian regimes in an attempt to eradicate it alongside efforts to privatize collective, tribal lands. The result was a shift in the tribal mode from pure kinship relations to an identity politics based on kinship and fixed geographic/administrative districts or what Charrad calls “local solidarities.”
