LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY TUNIS AND ITS FIRST RAILWAY: (RE)CONSTRUCTING THE TGM (TUNIS – GOULETTE – MARSA) IN CONTEXT

Date

2024-10-9

Author

Jaidane, Oumaima

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The TGM (Tunis-Goulette Marsa) was the first railway in the Ottoman province of Tunis, established in 1872 and modified in 1908 under the French occupation (1881-1956) into its current version. Articulating a historical and a historiographical concern, this study traces the evolution of this railway within a context of long nineteenth century shifts, modernity experimentations, nascent nation-states, and colonialism. Synthesizing a documentation of the line, its stations, their effect on urban dynamics between 1872-1922 and their similarities and differences from contemporary railways in French, British, or Ottoman territories, it unsettles the consideration of the TGM from an essentially colonialist perspective. Adopting a longue durée approach, the study outlines continuity corridors between economic, institutional and urban reforms in the early nineteenth century and infrastructural projects launched in its latter half. Crossing official Tunisian, French, and Turkish archival material and non-official written and graphic records, the thesis restitutes the agency of local and imperial Ottoman actors in the negotiations and implementations of the TGM and challenges the focus on its freight importance, positing its value for the local reigning classes’ urban visibility agendas before and beyond 1881. Engaging with the modifications the TGM underwent upon its electrification, the modification of its circuit and the multiplication of its stations in 1908, the study additionally analyzes the characteristic architectural style of the stations with regard to homogenizing French policies and to official architectural identity formulation endeavors. As such, it invites reflection on authority dynamics between French and Tunisian administrations and their perception from Istanbul.

Subject Keywords

long nineteenth century Tunis, TGM railways, identity construction and representation, French colonialism in the Maghreb, Ottoman Empire

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/111531

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis