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Whether with central bankers or strolling passers-by, inflation is a recurring term, one that encapsulates contemporary life in Tunisia. How does a concept of economics become everyday talk? Ultimately, I ask how in times of global inflation, anthropologists, especially ones working in North Africa and West Asia, can theorise a critical anthropology of inflation. Madam D, a senior official at the Central Bank of Tunisia was waving her hand rather energetically. Not only was her hand raised but she was agitating it from left to right seemingly keen on getting the attention of the moderator. It is June in a freezing conference room at the back of the Central Bank of Tunisia occupying an independent wing of the boat-shaped building in downtown Tunis. In pre-pandemic days, this honours salon hosted many receptions as foreign guests, usually donors to the bankrupt Tunisian state, mingled with central bankers. Yet these early summer days, as Tunisia was caught between an economic crisis and relentless COVID waves, the salon felt like a chilling haunted room. Nonetheless, that morning the deserted space had been occupied again by weekly media training organised by Elyes, 1 a member of the communication department of the Central Bank. The media training targeted senior members across the bank, as well as younger members of each department in the hope that they learn skills that would render their interventions to explain the bank's policies easier to understand for a broader public. The Central Bank's employees showed different levels of enthusiasm; some were more adamant than others. This scene illustrates the push-and-pull I encountered while doing fieldwork at the Central Bank, between employees keen on opening conversations between the institution and the Tunisian public, and others—like Madam D—anxious about how technical expertise gets diluted when it becomes part of everyday talk. Two streets away from the Central Bank on Tunis's main juncture, Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the soap stories Madam D is lamenting are perhaps best crystallised. These street interviews are most visible in downtown Tunis, where at least three cameras are posted every day, sometimes looking excessively professional with mics hanging over the camcorder and at times just a digital camera unsteadily held over a tripod. Whether with central bankers or strolling passers-by, inflation is a recurring term, one that mirrors life after the revolution in Tunisia. Inflation in Tunisia, in contrast to other economic measures, is central because its circulation has moved out of debates between economists to a broader social conversation, allowing us to ask: How does a concept of economics become everyday talk? I take the movement of inflation from an institutional discourse to a public one to illustrate how Tunisians critique the post-revolutionary era by mobilising inflation as a discursive device. To interrogate inflation discourses in Tunisia, it is crucial to first ask what we mean by inflation. Inflation is an aggregate, meaning it condenses a set of measurements: the rise of prices, the relation between the purchasing power of consumers within a territory, and the rate of the national currency. In other words, from the perspective of economics, inflation is not a straightforward measurement. Inflation is typically a broad measure, such as the overall increase in prices or the increase in the cost of living in a country. Inflation as such is defined in the relation between price and currency and as a measure indexed to time. Inflation is not an exceptional concept of economics, rather it is representative of what Michel Callon , Donald MacKenzie, Fabian Muniesa, and Lucia Siu call economics as performative. By flattening a variety of contextual observations, inflation aims to produce a reality of prices rising. It echoes the way economic theories present themselves as part of physical sciences, naturalised and determined, when, in fact, they speak of social phenomena. It would be easy to discard the abstraction of inflation solely as performative, yet inflation matters because it produces power effects Foucault , state interventions in particular that have material consequences. Inflation ought to perhaps be set aside as a powerful tool for economic performance because an entire modern institution is dependent on it, the Central Bank. The prerogative of modern central banks to maintain the stability of prices emerged in the interwar period as Europe was going through a hyper-inflationist era Maynes In the Arab world, Hicham Safieddine , who worked on the emergence of the Lebanese Central Bank from the colonial period onwards, shows, for example, how policies around inflation became central to the creation of the bank. The other mission of central banks is to guarantee the stability of a currency Desan Currency is itself indexed to inflation, as the rise of prices is determined in relation to what a unit of currency can buy. Here, currency becomes subsumed as the medium of exchange that alters the ability to buy. Through inflation, I delve into a technology of power that holds the sphere of the economy together by bringing under its realm different tools, from prices to currency. Its looming presence produces a set of anxieties that frame both people's material lives and their perceptions of what constitutes the domain of the economy as one in crisis. Recent transformations have shown that economic policies have escaped the domain of expertise because they now depend on public accountability Holmes As a new global recession has been looming—one where inflation is the main protagonist—modes of radical political action have emerged in response. The protests in Lebanon for example, targeted the general collusion of state and financial institutions in the backdrop of hyperinflation. Inflation triggers political reactions that not only contest policies to tame inflation but contest its hold as the most important index that states ought to tame. However, what makes the Tunisian context particularly interesting is that inflation has not come from a dramatic process of devaluation and sudden price surges. Instead, Tunisian inflation has been characterised by a steady increase for more than a decade. I consider inflation in Tunisia as gradual not necessarily by giving value to economic trends but instead through investigating discourses that view the rise of prices as increasing over time, steadily yet noticeably since To speak of a discourse of gradual inflation is to consider how people themselves measure rising prices. As such, this article centres inflation in Tunisia as a particularly generative case for considering inflation as a social process. I argue that the Tunisian case is one that helps consider an anthropology of inflation at a time when we are entering a global recession marked by the spectre of inflation. If inflation is the feel of the economy, then how do we render it an object of analytical inquiry that helps rethink the terms of the economy in the first place? This article emerges from more than three years of fieldwork in Tunisia, where I focused on national currency as a tense social object, one which brought the most surprising actors in conversation—central bankers and traffickers—as money became the object upon which definitions, critiques, and aspirations of the economy were inscribed. Throughout, I moved in and out of institutions like the Central Bank and followed several actors from bankers to border traffickers. Operating at the backdrop of my research was this atmospheric sense of crisis, depicted both as an economic crisis and as a political crisis that framed people's perceptions of the past decade. Yet when azma was conjured, it was often through the trope of inflation. Inflation became the index of a multifold crisis that one can feel everywhere, even in the air. The topic of inflation pervaded most of my interactions as an ethnographer of the economy, and my own everyday life as a Tunisian, seeing prices rising from one summer to another. Inflation became central in innocuous ways to my conversations with central bankers who not only worked on inflation-targeting but who themselves lamented that their salaries did not increase to follow the rise of prices. Inflation became part of how traffickers refused to see contraband as wealth accumulation arguing instead that they were merely scraping by in this inflationist decade. The steady but continuous rise of prices provided a chronology that a plethora of actors—financial entrepreneurs, female factory workers, my own family members even— used to scale from their own lives to what the country had become since the social movement of Inflation became a way to mediate between the technical discourses on monetary policies and the everyday economic lives of people across the country. As such, if a process confined to the technicalities of expert knowledge has been turned into a potent social object, in Tunisia but elsewhere too, then how do we illuminate it as an analytical device to better apprehend life under late capitalism? The conjuring of inflation, or what I call inflation-talk, operated like a hum, a vibration in the background of my research and, I would argue, of life in Tunisia more broadly. At the same time, ethnographic anecdotes on inflation cannot fall into the journalist tropes of taxi drivers speaking of inflation or eavesdropping on conversations in seminal Arab places, the souk or the hammam , as if they said something on the nature of Arab publics. On the other hand, I do not wish to condense inflation into a study of economic institutions and their distinctive discursive registers. In fact, though I begin this article inside the Central Bank, it is precisely the shift out of the bank and into a variety of discursive, media, and even material forms where I locate inflation-talk. Inflation operates as a heuristic device to make sense of the elusiveness of the economy. Inflation-talk, away from its technicalities, operates as a conversation starter on the economy but even more broadly on life in Tunisia today. To attend to inflation-talk, I consider inflation as it circulates innocuously, in media form, through rumour, gets crystallised onto physical objects, such as banknotes, or brings everyone including myself into the small talk. I use three stories that I locate as representative of the myriad of conversations I had and heard on inflation. In effect, there are other forms through which inflation circulates but through these three, I devise a methodology to render inflation emergent without losing it as generalised talk, as a hum in the background. In fact, it is in the particular types of engagements with inflation that we see how inflation-talk has become a way to address life after the revolution. First, an image. In the photograph a man in a suit is standing by a fruit stall, strawberries in front of him, bananas spread across, and oranges in the background. The man in the suit is holding in one hand a sign and on the other hand a piece of chalk. He is writing on the sign. Everyone is looking at him. This photograph circulated on social media in the early days of April The governor is at the market, taking one of the price tags and rewriting the price. He is in fact reducing the price. The image was shared widely without much explanation. Images of politicians or public figures in the market looking at the rise of prices had become common in the Tunisian media landscape over the past few years, so much so that everyone already knew the context of the photograph. Arabasta1, 12 April Citation: Anthropology of the Middle East 18, 2; Inflation relates to the rise of prices. This combination of expressions begs for a more careful examination of the link between inflation and price. I would add that prices are not only fictions but are rather persuasive fictions, meaning that prices produce a sense of commensurability between things Gregory yet a commensurability that remains contextual and open to social conflicts. Anthropologist Jane Guyer has argued that the recognition of price as a composite means that scholars ought to attend better to the elements of price that render its naturalisation possible. Inflation plays a central role in naturalising price as it scales up from price to price trends and therefore shifts the focus to the trend itself as if the basis—price—is already a given. The photograph conjures hope and impossibility, as people contemplate the possibility that the rise of prices can be stopped, easily, just by erasing a price from a chalkboard. The image speaks of impossibility as state leaders, from central bankers to governors, have watched the slow but steady rise of prices, incremental yet growing like a tidal wave, coupled with everyone's inability to stop its rising. Here inflation-talk is brought through the souk market but perhaps subversively. The scene begins at the market, is condensed into a photograph, and is circulated to a wider public through the media. The market's small talk of looking at price changes becomes a media buzz when the prices are not just looked at but altered. The photograph becomes an object, a tool that enables the circulation of inflation-talk. The image, which pauses at the moment in which a price is set, highlights the visibility of price rising, which in fact is not an abstract yield curve Zaloom but takes on a material and tangible inscription. It is the visibility of inflation through prices rising that centres consumption and the consumer as the agent of the economy. Inflation is particularly relevant in the context documented by scholars of neoliberalism of a shift from production as what constitutes the economy to consumption Harvey ; Ong Inflation as such places consumption as the core of what the economy is today. Yet inflation-talk—shifting technical expertise to everyday talk—renders ordinary citizens into experts of the economy. Inflation is perhaps a perfect recipe for citizen science, it involves quantitative measurements, that of price but deploys observations within the grasp of all. Observations, comparisons, and calculations become central to inflation-talk, precisely because of the visibility of prices, both as something written everywhere and as an inscription that in fact cannot be erased and altered that easily. In the realm of inflation-talk, everyone is turned into a calculative machine, comparing prices of yesterday to those of today and scaling from individual wallets to a national economy. Inflation merges the institutional time marked by policies to tame inflation with individual time, marked by calculations in the everyday. As such, it becomes a particularly generative site in which the boundaries of the economy as a sphere of expert knowledge break down. Precisely because even state leaders and central bankers cannot halt the rise of prices, inflation takes on atmospheric qualities. The anxiety of inflation comes precisely from the fact that it alters time beyond the capacity of economists or state leaders to handle it. The media buzz around the photograph happened because the gesture of the governor was not necessarily transgressive, it was actually impossible. Prices have been naturalised as following market trends that exceed human agency and strengthen the notion of a free market disconnected from material realities. In some way, the trend of prices that cannot be altered produces a mode of desire as anxiety, 3 a desire for a naturalised idea of the economy as self-regulating that quickly leads to the anxiety of rises whose movement cannot be halted. Indeed, inflation-talk in the context of Tunisia does not seek to provide a radical political critique of the economy. Second, an object. The investigation followed the latest media buzz on the national currency, the Tunisian dinar. People had noticed that in the past few weeks, the money they were extracting from ATMs and at the bank were new, crisp banknotes—too new. From there, rumours started growing that the Central Bank was printing new banknotes as alarmed journalists relayed the story on the radio saying that the consequences would inevitably fall on Tunisians who would see their cost of living rise even more. No one bothered to confirm the actual rumours. Panicked orthodox economists noted that even the US Federal Reserve was doing inflation control while young heterodox economists took over social media to explain that inflation management was the biggest deterrent to the much-needed economic growth of Tunisia. Meanwhile, at the Central Bank, I was sitting across from Elyes, a member of the press team, who was heavily sighing. The banknotes are literally printed in Europe and have to be announced publicly almost two years prior. Do they think we print them on the third floor with A4 paper? This second story, a rumour, pairs inflation and rising prices with an even more notorious object, the national currency, revealing how inflation-talk becomes so central that it shadows money itself. People feel banknotes against their fingers for rising prices that the quality of the notes brings. A new banknote becomes a sign of inflation itself. Inflation-talk is felt in crisp banknotes bringing together the relationship between the printing of currency and inflation control, ironically two central missions of central banks. It is not innocuous of course that banknotes become the objects that produce the rumour. The devaluation of currency merges itself with price rises provoking conflation between different measurements—a condition of inflation one where the rise subsumes the different causes. Here money gets reinvested as a material object whose materiality becomes evidence for inflation. Inflation produces a feel of the economy, a shared affect of what the economy comes to be. The sensory aspects of banknotes become signs of something else: that of inflation not even in its relation to prices rising but as a sign of a looming crisis. Inflation jumps scales and evades forms, it is a sensory interpretation of feeling crisp banknotes that gets transmuted into a sign of miscommunication between the Central Bank and the public until it becomes an overall anxious feel of the next economic catastrophe. The rumour reveals that what central bankers imagine as technical policies discussed only between economists are understood by a wider public looking for signs of inflation beyond prices and into the medium of price-value itself: money. In bringing to light the gap between the rumour and the institutional narrative, inflation opens communicative channels Holmes and eliminates the separation between the economy as the expert realm and the political as the realm of the citizen-subject. Inflation-talk renders citizens watchdogs of economic transformations. It helps trickle from prices to other economic discourses, as people come to discuss other monetary policies on printing currency, for example, or follow the bi-yearly administrative meetings at the bank to set the key rate. Yet though people follow policies, I warn against the tendency to view this as a sign of a breakdown of trust towards the state, which has been argued by scholars looking at the decade after Allal and Geisser ; Gherib Instead, it mirrors a reorientation of the imagined scales of possible within a regime of global finance where prices are determined outside the realm of the nation-state. By arguing against the Central Bank's official narrative, an imaginary of a global economy, one that everyone now perceives as escaping the control of bankers and state officials alike is brought onto the surface—of banknotes literally. Third, a fine. I am sitting in a coffeeshop in the town of Tabarka in the Northwest of Tunisia, next to Mehdi, a carpenter, and Abdou, the owner of an eyeglasses store. We are panting, as we have just descended the notorious steep slopes to arrive in town. A motorbike passes in front of us. We chuckle. Mehdi is referring to the common Tunisian expression aam w Vespa a year and a Vespa , which refers to the prison sentence from Law 52 Boukhayatia that criminalised the consumption of weed and was used by the police state to control young men from working-class neighbourhoods, taken in raids and whose blood was tested. The prison sentence back then was a year in prison and a fine of 10, dinars, which was the equivalent of the cost of a Vespa. The expression aam w Vespa showed up in rap songs and TV shows and became part of the familiar lingo through which young Tunisians critiqued the absurdity of a police state where smoking could cost you the price of an imported motorbike. In this small snippet, inflation is very much in the air, sliding into the conversation as one catches one's breath, its echoes resonating between two laughs. In Tunisia, inflation marks the experience of everyday life after , a reminder of post-revolutionary disillusions that only grow, rising like prices with the passing of time. Inflation is a temporal device with at its foundation, a comparison between prices before, prices today, and prices in the future. For Jane Guyer the time of late capitalism is prophetic and punctuates time. In that sense, inflation is the epitomising technology that not only punctuates time, the time of price differences but reorganises future temporalities as well. It impacts past, present, and future by producing a rhythm, a tempo to time that is solely punctuated by prices rising. The time of rising prices is measured daily, monthly, quarterly, or yearly depending on one's individual experience. Monetary policies that target inflation produce their own temporalities too as inflation-targeting and readjusting occur every six weeks overlapping with the bi-yearly meetings to discuss the rise of the key rate. As such, to speak of inflation is to consider it not only as a technology marking social relations of past, present, and future but as a temporal rhythm that brings citizen-consumers and central bankers in its tempo. Inflation-talk in Tunisia is marked by the sense of prices slowly rising over time, which unsettles the notion of inflation as a sudden rupture. Instead, the imaginings of prices rising are mapped onto the chronology of the post-revolutionary decade as prices become a sign of the disenchantments of the revolution. The disenchantments are marked by what changes occur and what remains the same, in other words by the contrast between the continuity of prison sentences and its only change—the rising price of fines. The tone of the joke, merging state violence, revolutionary disillusions, and inflation recalls this routine—where crisis is the ordinary yet one that ought to be repeatedly uttered. Inflation in some sense is contained within a process, the rise of prices, but it also exceeds price to become a way for people to trace the changes of their socioeconomic worlds through their own everyday experiences. The joke is small talk per se, uttered between breathlessness and laughter yet through recalling it, I highlight the mundanity of inflation-talk. For the joke to be a snippet of inflation discourse requires the ethnographer's attunement. Attunement collapses the atmospheric and the ordinary, bringing the abstractions of economic intensifications with the ordinary qualities of talk and the senses. In other words, new ways to tune in. Through tuning in, a sonic play between attunement and tending, I explore new ways to ethnographically listen to and feel with. Inflation-talk is both background and foreground—hovering around, transmuting into notions of crisis but at the same time endlessly returning to the forefront through many devices—including a bad joke. In the freezing Central Bank conference room that began this article, there was always a hum. An aggregate of sounds lingered in the background of conversations—the creaking of the floor, the constant drone of the air conditioning, the echoes of the street coming through the shut windows, and the thickness of the air shifting as the door opened and closed. This background soundscape attunes to what is around, what vibrates in the background, seems inconsequential and yet could be essential to understand the feel of a spacetime. This article aims to pause the louder sounds in the room—central bankers complaining, experts sighing—to hear the faint but steady hum of inflation-talk. I posit inflation-talk as a continuous hum, a faint vibration, to show how it operates in atmospheric ways, meaning that it seems to transcend specific sites, institutions, and even discursive forms and yet remain somehow elusive, circulating, and shifting shapes in its movement. However, these elusive passages, crossings, and slippages of inflation-talk might engender new ways of studying the economy. Therefore, I locate inflation-talk as a device that crystallises the atmospheric, the sense—imperceptible at times—of the economy. Inflation is more than an economic tool as inflation-talk is more than just discourse, revealing through discursive devices affective states. Talk of inflation crystallises the feel of the economy, it becomes a site—often invoked through material objects or personal experiences—which stands for the experience of crisis. The different ways of conjuring inflation, through news of key rates rising, or small talk of price changes at a coffee shop provoke feelings of compression, loss of control and crisis, that create a general feel of the economy, general because it circulates open-endedly. Inflation-talk highlights the feelings that inflation provokes, the anxiety of what cannot be controlled nor anticipated anymore. A soap opera is a media form that circulates broadly, generating conversations—the small talk of asking about the latest episode. Inflation operates similarly, generating talk, in different settings, mediated by media, material objects or people. Inflation as a feel of the economy helps consider how certain devices, here an economic measurement, become the site through which one world is made sense of. In doing so, I extend an invitation to devise collectively an anthropology of inflation. An anthropology of inflation ought to pry open our methodological tools. An anthropology of inflation is inextricable from economic anthropology's call to take people's economic lives as the crux of the social, the thick material that makes the social fabric of late capitalism Narotzky and Besnier Yet often, economic anthropology seeks to decentre the constructed realities of economics without realising that they have crept their way into social worlds. Inflation is a performative measurement; it flattens material realities and produces power relations that render certain sites at the mercy of the price volatilities of global financial markets. Inflation matters as a social concept because it has been turned into a site for everyday discourses, for a feel of the economy as anxiety towards the future. Inflation comes to organise people's sense of time, their affective responses to crises, and ultimately their ways of being in the world. An anthropology of inflation is one that begins in North Africa and West Asia. All too often, political economy has dismissed Arab-majority societies Deeb and Winegar as late to global capitalist processes. Yet the politics of inflation frame the recent past, as people have come to understand the disenchantments of the last decade through the lens of inflation and as the violence of rising prices reveals new sites for talk, feel, and perhaps even resistance. I follow from Julia Elyachar's call to study the ideological foundations of mainstream economic theory through North Africa and West Asia to centre these regions as ones from which new ways of studying the economy can emerge. This does not mean that discourses on inflation do not exist elsewhere, on the contrary. Yet the case of Tunisia is generative precisely because its inflation, gradual, steady, and always present, has seeped into social life. In the rhythm and inescapability of inflation, I highlight the importance of attending to the mundane, routine yet pervasive talk of the economy that frames everyday life. Inflation is essential to understanding Tunisia's post-revolutionary era, after when protests led to the fall of the regime of the dictator Ben Ali. Indeed, if inflation discourses became central after the revolution, it is because of a discrepancy between discourses of the economy before and after In my own interviews with central bankers, they acknowledged the role of the institution in fostering the myth of economic growth the dictatorship needed, for example, through maintaining an artificial exchange rate for the Tunisian dinar. The era ushered in by the protests of instead brought to light pre-existing conditions of dispossession that were excluded from public discourse due to media control in the dictatorship era. The marker of the revolution holds important symbolic meaning for Tunisians and should be analysed as such. The year has pre-empted discourses on crisis and inflation, which perhaps had a prior material basis, but came to occupy the centre of public life only after the revolution. As such, the gradual nature of inflation is both out of the ordinary yet also mundane. Moreover, most people from central bankers to everyday citizens discussing prices, mark as the start of the inflation process in the country. That absolutely does not mean that there was no inflation before. This also does not mean that to each revolution, one gets the payback of inflation, something that would quickly turn revolutionary aspirations into price anxieties. Instead, the post-revolutionary moment becomes central because it entangles material and discursive transformations that render discourses on inflation more visible. The three stories of this article, an image generating social media buzz, hands feeling the newness of banknotes, and an inside joke shared at a national level mirror inflation-talk. They show how inflation-talk circulates through different means, from media to private conversations, mobilising actors from central bankers to preoccupied citizens and conjuring both the banality of small talk and the drama of changing prices against all odds. The inflation-talk populating the Tunisian contemporary landscape requires new orientations towards an anthropology of inflation that renders economic atmospheres into emergent analytics. How would anthropology, then not only narrate the object price but also rising prices as potent social processes? Through inflation-talk, I move away from the truth claims of economics that asks how and why prices have risen. Instead, an anthropology of inflation takes to heart the idea that people within a social context are discussing and feeling inflation and that it is the entanglements between discourse and affect that ought to be centred. Inflation is perhaps ironically a deeply anthropological object, one that mobilises banality and drama—mundane counting strategies as much as national stories that refuse the common sense of the economy. I am grateful to the members of the Spring Ethnographic Analysis Workshop at Harvard University and the members of the Conference of the Society of Economic Anthropology for reading and commenting on versions of this article. All the names and individual characteristics of the interlocutors in this article have been anonymized. Abbes, S. Diaz, N. Abu-Lughod , L. Agha , A. Allal , A. Paris : CNRS. Best , J. Bohannan , P. Boukhayatia , R. Bryant , R. Callon , M. On the Performativity of Economics , eds D. MacKenzie , F. Muniesa , and L. Chhibber , A. Choy , T. Chumley , L. Deeb , L. Desan , C. Dumas , M. Elyachar , J. Foucault , M. Burchell , C. Gordon , and P. Gherib , B. Gregory , C. Guyer , J. Hann and K. Hart , Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , — Harvey , D. Hibou , B. Holmes , D. Kaboub , F. Mackenzie , D. Maynes , E. McCormack , D. Mitchell , T. Muir , S. Narotzky , S. Oner , C. Ong , A. Papailias , P. Polanyi , K. Roitman , J. Safieddine , H. Stewart , K. Weiner , A. World Bank. Zaloom , C. Her research investigates money, currency, and the economy in North Africa. Her dissertation focuses on struggles around the form money takes in Tunisia by following the making of an official currency—its institutions and policies—in relation to its subversions the informal, illicit, and illegal. She is also a filmmaker and visual artist, and her related creative practice examines capitalist imaginaries through moving-image, writing, and sound. Email: amri g. Advanced Search Help. Open access. Get Citation Alerts Get Permissions. Download PDF. Theorising Inflation What Is Inflation? The Performance of Inflation Inflation is not an exceptional concept of economics, rather it is representative of what Michel Callon , Donald MacKenzie, Fabian Muniesa, and Lucia Siu call economics as performative. A Methodology for Inflation This article emerges from more than three years of fieldwork in Tunisia, where I focused on national currency as a tense social object, one which brought the most surprising actors in conversation—central bankers and traffickers—as money became the object upon which definitions, critiques, and aspirations of the economy were inscribed. Figure 1. Second, an Object to Feel Second, an object. Third, a Fine as Private Joke Third, a fine. Conclusion: An Anthropology of Inflation—Banality and Drama The three stories of this article, an image generating social media buzz, hands feeling the newness of banknotes, and an inside joke shared at a national level mirror inflation-talk. Notes 1 All the names and individual characteristics of the interlocutors in this article have been anonymized. On the Performativity of Economics, eds D. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Share on facebook Share on linkedin Share on twitter. Anthropology of the Middle East. Get Permissions. Export Figures. Close View raw image Figure 1. Export References. Follow us on: Share Share Share. View Expanded. View Table. View Full Size.

Zatla: The Drug of Choice for Tunisia’s Disillusioned Youth

Buying weed Gafsa

The human trafficking market in Tunisia is not as sizeable as in other countries in North Africa, but it is still a concern. Several cases of trafficking involve sub-Saharan African women being exploited for domestic servitude and in the nightclub industry. Men from West Africa are mainly trafficked for labour exploitation purposes. However, Tunisian nationals also account for a significant share of victims of human trafficking. In , more than half the victims identified by the authorities were women and children. It is expected that this criminal market will increase in size to the rise of human smuggling, as these crimes often overlap. Tunisia is both a source country for migrants and an increasingly important transit zone for individuals moving from Africa to Europe, with Italy being the primary destination. There has also been a dramatic increase in the number of foreign migrants embarking from the country during the same time period, cementing Tunisia as a key transit country for irregular migration in the region. Rising migration has relied in part on human smuggling networks, which exist all along the Tunisian coast. It has also fueled a rise in self-smuggling, where migrants pool funds to purchase equipment and depart autonomously. While extortion and protection racketeering are generally minimal in the country, small-scale activities of this nature do take place in irregular car parking lots. Individuals often work in networks to collect parking fees, controlling select areas or working in areas where there are mass events, suggesting that the vehicles of those who refuse to pay might be damaged. While arms trafficking remains an issue in Tunisia it is not as widespread as other forms of illicit trafficking. Some networks that smuggle firearms into the country store them in deserted places. While some smuggled weapons have allegedly been used in terrorist attacks, most have been sold on to hunters or residents of rural areas. Counterfeit goods such as clothing, toys, perfume and cosmetics are prevalent and are often sold by street vendors or in shops. Economic difficulties have led to an increased demand for these goods, with most Tunisians preferring to buy counterfeit products, which has had a negative impact on formal trade. There is also illicit trade in excise goods, such as cigarettes and alcohol. The alcoholic beverage market is rife with illegal activity, including illegal imports to avoid taxes. It is difficult to obtain retail licences for the sale of alcohol and the complex regulatory process has led to low- and mid-level police officers abusing their powers. Tunisia is also a destination country for illicit cigarettes, with high local demand stemmed by the price differences. Authorities are working to crack down on contraband goods, including cigarettes and alcohol, and goods have been seized in various parts of the country. However, political leaders are reluctant to streamline the application processes for alcohol retail licences because of various factors, including the monopoly of certain companies in this sector. These conditions may favour the expansion of the black market in alcohol unless significant steps are taken to address them. The illegal flora market in Tunisia is growing, with reports of illegal logging of Algerian oak trees to produce charcoal prevalent in the north-western Ain Draham region. The recent clearing of eucalyptus trees for the Bouhartma Dam in Jendouba, overseen by a contractor operating illegally in the area, has contributed to the destruction of old-growth forests and there have been reports of locals logging cedar and fir illegally in the Rif Mountains of the Maghreb countries. Corrupt forestry officers and the economic toll exacted by the COVID restrictions have facilitated this practice. Wildfires have further exacerbated the problem, with almost all of them attributed to human recklessness and intentional criminal activity. The illegal trade in wild animals remains a significant issue in Tunisia, particularly in the southern desert regions, where wealthy Gulf Arabs engage in indiscriminate hunting. The animals are smuggled illegally through regulated export chains and sold at high prices in international markets. Environmental associations have raised concerns about the hunting of endangered animal species such as houbara and deer during legal hunting seasons. In relation to non-renewable resources, there has been a gradual increase in fuel smuggling from Algeria and Libya since , and copper theft is prevalent, with perpetrators often acting in organized groups. Theft of copper wire from public infrastructure frequently results in public lighting, telephones and internet services being unavailable for extended periods. Heroin smuggling has increased in Tunisia. Most of this is believed to be smuggled into the country by passengers on commercial aircraft or ferries. It largely caters to domestic consumers in coastal urban areas. However, a cluster of arrests in the interior governorate of Gafsa suggests that heroin use may also be an issue in rural areas. Similarly, the cocaine trade has also expanded. In terms of consumption, Tunisia has seen a rise in cocaine usage, although it remains a relatively expensive and uncommon drug. The trade in cannabis and synthetic drugs are also widespread and on the rise, having a significant negative impact on Tunisian society. Cannabis is the most widely consumed drug in the country and its affordability and accessibility have led to an increase in consumption, particularly among middle- and high-school students. While strict laws against drug possession have contributed to a dramatic increase in the incarceration of first-time offenders, calls to abolish the law have gained significant traction. Synthetic drugs continue to be smuggled into Tunisia from Europe and neighbouring countries through different routes. There is also some smuggling of synthetic drugs, Pregabalin in particular, into Algeria and Libya. Generally, these synthetics are procured from hospitals or pharmacies, before being smuggled out of the country via small networks. Ecstasy, previously predominantly consumed by wealthy youths, has become more accessible and its use has spread to low-income neighbourhoods. Authorities have seized large numbers of ecstasy pills and Pregabalin hidden in cars and luggage. The use of subutex, a semi-synthetic opioid, and lysergic acid diethylamide are also on the rise in the country, often smuggled in by Tunisian nationals. Tunisia's dynamic tourism industry provides both a cover and a potential market for such drugs. The Tunisian government recognizes the growing risk of cyber-dependent crime and is seeking to enhance international support to combat it. The industrial sector appears to be the primary target of cyber-attacks, with losses estimated at millions of dinars per year. Conversely, the Tunisian financial sector is reportedly better protected against such attacks than the government. Overall, the number of cyber-attacks in Tunisia is increasing exponentially, with traces of state-sponsored attacks targeting the country. Financial crimes such as tax evasion and avoidance, achieved through mis-invoicing and abusive transfer pricing, result in annual losses of over half a billion dollars. Organized financial crimes involving high-level political actors and prominent businesspeople are well documented, with sports-betting rings emerging as a niche for corruption in professional sports leagues. These crimes often have transnational links and involve complex financial schemes. It is essential to pay particular attention to multinational corporations that exploit the tax code in Tunisia to shift profits to tax havens. Widespread corruption is facilitated by state-embedded actors, including politicians, bureaucrats, law enforcement officials and judges, who aid or directly engage in criminal activities. Citizens often bribe officials to gain access to public services. There are numerous reports of corruption among customs and police services, which allegedly protect trafficking networks or allow criminal suspects to cross borders. Private sector actors are also involved in criminal activities, particularly in sports betting and money laundering, with some Tunisian businessmen and companies implicated in illegal transactions. Fake recruitment agencies and some private employment companies are involved in trafficking girls, foreign nationals and Tunisian women, who are forced into prostitution. Several small networks dominate the criminal landscape in the country and are involved in a variety of activities, including human trafficking and the smuggling of counterfeit goods, although organized crime groups engaged in these activities may have different structures and levels of organization. Human trafficking networks are very small-scale and composed of brokers who act as intermediaries and lure foreign or national victims into exploitative situations. The informal trade in goods, on the other hand, is almost inextricably linked to more structured criminal networks and represents a systemic issue with deep economic and social ramifications, accounting for a significant portion of Tunisia's gross domestic product. The criminal mafia in Tunisia, which specializes in drug trafficking, robbery, theft and currency smuggling, is generally centered on family-based organization, which exist in various regions of the country. Although there are a few structured networks whose operations may be classified as mafia style, they are limited in number and scope. The presence of foreign actors in Tunisia has been declining in recent years and is currently limited. The lack of governmental stability has led to a loss of faith in state institutions. Moreover, the absence of significant action against corruption, along with the systematic undermining of state institutions, the concentration of power and the erosion of the rule of law since the coup have caused general disillusionment, even among the current president's allies. While the official discourse often attributes Tunisia's many issues to organized crime, this is largely an exaggeration used to justify problems such as the shortage of food products and other goods, including sugar, rice, bottled water and petroleum derivatives. Tunisia's accountability systems are inadequate. The new Constitution does not provide for adequate checks and balances, leading to violations of and attacks on constitutional freedoms and rights. Anti-corruption legislation has been weak in the past. In , the National Commission for the Fight against Corruption was shut down by the authorities. The political instability in the country has had no effect on international cooperation over organized crime. In fact, efforts to cooperate over cybersecurity resilience have increased. However, the Tunisian state still has no clear crime prevention and anti-crime policies to deal with organized crime. Although the law provides for severe penalties for drug trading, the trade has spread remarkably in recent years. The law that criminalizes cannabis, its cultivation, promotion and consumption, has proved ineffective. There are also challenges with the implementation of anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking laws. The government is taking steps to address the emerging cyber-related crime trend and improve cybersecurity measures, particularly in critical sectors like finance and telecommunications, but while there is a national cybersecurity strategy in place, there is also substantial room for improvement in implementing it. The judicial system faces many challenges and limitations, including politicization, lack of independence, understaffing and limited specialized expertise. The dissolution by the president of the Supreme Judicial Council and the creation of a temporary council have raised concerns about his authority to dismiss judges who violate their professional duties, without specifically defining these duties. Civilians, particularly those accused of defaming the army, can be tried in military courts. The president's assumption of new powers has weakened the judiciary, resulting in judges being fired and multiple cases of judicial inquiries initiated under political instructions. The judiciary also lacks funding and human resources and several high-level positions remain vacant. The prison system is dysfunctional. The Tunisian police force is facing mounting condemnation for its use of violence against protesters and detainees, with reports of physical and moral violations during arrests and interrogations in security and detention centres. Human rights organizations and civil society activists are calling for the police to respect the law and the guarantees given to the accused, including access to medical examination, lawyers and family. Tunisia has generally been able to control its territory, with strengthened border security and limited reported cases of friction between the army and terrorists. However, some forms of smuggling continue to be tolerated, and corruption of border security officials remains an issue. In terms of cybersecurity, Tunisia has strong legal and technical measures, but weaknesses in organizational matters. Tunisia has made efforts to combat money laundering and terrorism financing, especially after being blacklisted in , which eventually led to the country being delisted in While there has been progress in prosecuting entities and individuals suspected of money laundering and terrorist financing, there is still room for improvement. Investigative and prosecutorial efforts have been selective, often ignoring the wealthiest and most powerful actors, unless there is political intervention. However, the country is currently facing one of its worst economic crises since independence, aggravated by political strife and the COVID pandemic. The informal economy is expanding, while there are few economic opportunities due to high inflation, unemployment, marginalization, regional economic inequality, under development and an absence of effective reforms. The government's inability to access global financial markets and mobilize state resources has exacerbated the situation. Despite improvements in the investment policy frameworks, economic policies have stagnated or declined. The Tunisian government has made efforts to support victims and prevent human trafficking, but there are still shortcomings in the country's approach. While the government has provided trafficking victims with healthcare and assisted in their repatriation and reintegration, NGOs have reported that the limited number of ministries that can officially identify trafficking victims has slowed the process of victim identification and access to services. In addition, the process of providing exemption from visa penalties for foreign trafficking victims is slow and cumbersome and authorities may have punished some victims for unlawful acts traffickers compelled them to commit. The government's approach is heavily security focused and there is still work to be done in preventing human trafficking. The National Authority established an evaluation and follow-up unit responsible for treating the root causes of trafficking, disseminating information and preventing child labour and the exploitation of women and children abroad. However, the results of the unit's work are not visible on the ground and the suspension of the independent anti-corruption authority are worrying signs. Moreover, growing hostility towards civil society organizations involved in victim and witness support activities may further undermine the state's capacity to protect victims and whistleblowers. Press freedom in Tunisia has deteriorated since the elections, with politicians openly attacking journalists. Although an independent commission supervises audio-visual media, journalists have reportedly faced growing pressure and intimidation from government officials, particularly since the president announced his exceptional powers in July The virtual boycott by the president and prime minister of local media outlets has greatly curtailed the work of journalists and undermined people's right to access information. Many journalists practise self-censorship to avoid angering the president and his supporters. There has also been institutional hostility to civil society organizations and NGOs, with the government directly accusing those who are funded by international parties of treason and anti-patriotism and using the judiciary to prosecute journalists, activists, lawyers and political figures. The criminal markets score is represented by the pyramid base size and the criminal actors score is represented by the pyramid height, on a scale ranging from 1 to The resilience score is represented by the panel height, which can be identified by the side of the panel. Capital Tunis. Population 12,, Geography type Coastal. Income group Lower middle income. GINI Index Criminal markets 5. Human trafficking 4. Human smuggling 8. Extortion and protection racketeering 2. Arms trafficking 3. Trade in counterfeit goods 6. Illicit trade in excisable goods 5. Flora crimes 3. Fauna crimes 5. Non-renewable resource crimes 5. Heroin trade 3. Cocaine trade 4. Cannabis trade 7. Synthetic drug trade 6. Cyber-dependent crimes 4. Financial crimes 8. Criminal actors 3. Mafia-style groups 1. Criminal networks 4. State-embedded actors 6. Foreign actors 2. Private sector actors 4. Government transparency and accountability 4. International cooperation 5. National policies and laws 6. Judicial system and detention 3. Law enforcement 4. Territorial integrity 6. Anti-money laundering 5. Economic regulatory capacity 3. Victim and witness support 4. Prevention 3. Non-state actors 4. Analysis Download full profile english. People The human trafficking market in Tunisia is not as sizeable as in other countries in North Africa, but it is still a concern. Trade While arms trafficking remains an issue in Tunisia it is not as widespread as other forms of illicit trafficking. Environment The illegal flora market in Tunisia is growing, with reports of illegal logging of Algerian oak trees to produce charcoal prevalent in the north-western Ain Draham region. Drugs Heroin smuggling has increased in Tunisia. Cyber Crimes The Tunisian government recognizes the growing risk of cyber-dependent crime and is seeking to enhance international support to combat it. Financial Crimes Financial crimes such as tax evasion and avoidance, achieved through mis-invoicing and abusive transfer pricing, result in annual losses of over half a billion dollars. Criminal Actors Widespread corruption is facilitated by state-embedded actors, including politicians, bureaucrats, law enforcement officials and judges, who aid or directly engage in criminal activities. Leadership and governance The lack of governmental stability has led to a loss of faith in state institutions. Criminal justice and security The judicial system faces many challenges and limitations, including politicization, lack of independence, understaffing and limited specialized expertise. Economic and financial environment Tunisia has made efforts to combat money laundering and terrorism financing, especially after being blacklisted in , which eventually led to the country being delisted in Civil society and social protection The Tunisian government has made efforts to support victims and prevent human trafficking, but there are still shortcomings in the country's approach. Next Skip.

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