Dream City 2025: Exploring Race, Status, and Nationality in the Italian Colonial Empire
A debate was held at the Diocesan Library on October 11, as part of the Dream City 2025 program, to discuss race, status, and nationality in the Italian colonial empire. The ERC research project "Redmix" aims to map the histories and archives of mixed-ancestry communities in the Red Sea region between the 19th and 21st centuries.
Events in Tunis
In Tunis, as part of the Dream City 2025 festival, a series of meetings and workshops dedicated to memory, migration, and "mixedness" took place. The Diocesan Library in the Medina hosted the conference "Race, Status, Mixedness, and Nationality in the Italian Colonial Empire," featuring historian Valentina Fusari and researcher Adnen El Ghali. Admission was free, subject to availability.
The Redmix Project
This event is part of a series of activities scheduled between October 10 and 17, also related to the European research project "Redmix," which focuses on the history of people of mixed ancestry in the Red Sea region. According to the official Dream City program, the calendar of "Talks" announced the dialogue between Fusari and El Ghali at the Diocesan Library on October 11, preceded by an intervention by author and director Ahmed El Attar at the El Attarine Barracks, and followed on October 16 by the talk "Living in Diaspora: Identity Put to the Test of Time and Space" with researcher Sara Zanotta and Adnen El Ghali, also at the Diocesan Library.
Festival Organization
The festival, organized by L'Art Rue, takes place in Tunis from October 3 to 19. The activities of the "Redmix" project in Tunis also include, during the same period, workshops and conferences on memory, archives, and historical reconstruction of the colonial period. Key dates include October 16 for "Living in Diaspora" and October 17 for a meeting with Professor Alfonso Campisi from the University of La Manouba and Adnen El Ghali on the Sicilian presence in Tunis between the 19th and 20th centuries. These initiatives, documented on Zenodo, call for interdisciplinary approaches combining social history, visual anthropology, and archival practices.
Project Objectives
"Redmix, Unpacking Mixedness for an Inclusive History of the Red Sea (1800s-2000s)" is a project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) with a Consolidator Grant, coordinated by the University of Turin. Its objective is to reconstruct, through a comparative approach, the history of mixed-ancestry communities in the Red Sea region, creating a digital archive and cross-referencing oral and archival sources dispersed in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Methodology
The project adopts a "global microhistory" approach, linking African, Middle Eastern, and critical mixed-race studies, and valorizing the "bottom-up" perspective of individuals directly concerned. The Cordis sheet indicates that the reference period extends from the 19th to the 20th century until the early 2000s, with the construction of a digital archive on "mixedness" and an intense program of scientific dissemination. The official launch was marked by a kick-off in Turin in the spring, with keynotes and thematic sessions dedicated to the social history of the Red Sea.
Mediterranean Dimension
The Mediterranean dimension is central: the Red Sea is a crossroads between Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean. The initiatives in Tunis, within a festival that brings together arts, research, and the public in the historic center's locations, reinforce the ideal bridge between the Tunisian capital and the historiographical sites on coloniality, diasporas, and multiple belongings.
Civic Value
The implantation at the Diocesan Library, a cultural institution of the Medina engaged in dialogue and diffusion activities, increases the civic value of the meetings. The cycle of appointments of Dream City offers Tunis an updated look at sensitive themes for the Mediterranean region, from colonial memory to diasporic identities. The anchoring to the European project Redmix, which builds digital tools and research networks on "mixedness" in the Red Sea, gives the program a solid scientific and international basis.
Opportunities for the Public and Universities
For the public and Tunisian universities, this is an opportunity to confront ongoing studies and archives, with potential repercussions on didactics, diffusion, and trans-Mediterranean academic cooperation.
