ABSTRACT
Produced by a collaboration among Tunisian, French, and global actors whose participation resulted from attempts by the Tunisian state and tourism professionals to see the country’s tourism portfolio become more diverse, globally competitive, and economically productive, it engages Tunisia with broader trends in globalization, identity formation, and heritage tourism. By inviting visitors to witness the long history of Tunisia in a new space designed to be welcoming, contemporary, and recognizable in its appearance, the museum building aims to represent the nation and the state in accordance with officially sanctioned heritage discourse agendas. The chapter addresses the sustained significance of Tunisia’s pre-Arab past for heritage tourism professionals and politicians. It explores the museum’s foundation, its expansion during the colonial period and its position in the wake of the 2011 democratic revolution. North Africa’s pre-Arab pasts were extremely important to French colonial and Catholic Church officials, many of whom viewed them to be modern inheritors of ancient civilizing authority in the region.
