Changing agricultural practices in the oases of southern Tunisia: Conflict and competition for resources in a post-revolutionary and globalisation context

Abstract

In Tunisia, the rise of new social demands with regard to regional and local development, particularly in the central and southern areas of Tunisia, has highlighted the conflicting and political dimensions of development strategies. In the oases of southern Tunisia, in particular, changing market conditions and growing competition for land and water, especially between old oases and new productive irrigated areas and between agricultural investors and small farmers, contribute to politicising the issue of access to resources and territorial development. In this context of a changing economic and political environment, we observe a variety of development dynamics in the oasis areas, which results in major transformations in the socio-spatial logics and functioning of these agricultural territories. Based on the field surveys with local actors and farmers in the oases of Tozeur and Gabès, this paper explores the links between new forms of valorising oasis territorial resources and political motivations behind rising demands for social and territorial justice, and the ways in which these dynamics contribute to opening up a new space for public debate about local development models. We formulate the hypothesis that changing management practices of oasis resources in a context of political and eco-environmental crisis, under the pressure of social mobilisation, contributes to new ways of integrating oasis territories into globalisation processes. These are expressed in contradictory and conflicting dynamics. On the one hand, there is a process of de-territorialisation, linked to the development of agribusiness, export-oriented intensive farming and mass tourism and, on the other hand, a process of re-territorialisation resulting from innovative practices, based on a heritage valuation of oasis resources, which contribute to rehabilitating diversified family farming systems.