“People Want a Clean Environment”: Historical Roots of the Environmental Crisis and the Emergence of Eco-Resistances in Tunisia in Ordinary people, resistance and the politicization of urban spaces and environment in North Africa

In Tunisia since the 2010–11 revolution, the relationship between activism and territories has emerged as central in the redefinition of social conflicts. The present essay analyses the growing environmental protests, focusing on a series of movements in defence of urban and rural regions which, although different from each other, share the centrality of the local dimension in defining new forms of conflict and the environmentalist theme as the guiding thread of their struggles. Based on a historical analysis of the roots of the environmental crisis and inequalities in the country, on the one hand, and on the results of fieldwork on the ongoing environmental protests, on the other hand, the aim of this study is to give an enlarged image of the plural forms of eco-resistance that are taking place in Tunisia.