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The Political Activities of Dual Citizens in the Western Mediterranean, with a Focus on Tunisia, Algeria and France – 5in10 with Thomas Serres

Dr. Thomas Serres’ research spans the field of Middle Eastern studies, critical security studies, and comparative politics, combining an ethnographic approach with a conceptual apparatus inspired by critical theory. He is particularly interested in the effects of protracted and entangled crises (popular uprisings, “war on terror,” refugee crisis, neoliberalization) in North Africa and beyond. His first book, The Suspended Disaster: Governance by Catastrophization in Bouteflika’s Algeria, was published in 2023 with Columbia University Press, expanding on a French edition initially released in 2019. He also co-edited the volume North Africa and the Making of Europe with Bloomsbury Publishing (2018).

Thomas Serres. Photo: Private.

How do you explain your work to someone who may not be an expert in the same field of inquiry and comes from another geographical context?

I study the mobility of highly qualified individuals from the Maghreb and to the Maghreb, and the role of the state and the market in shaping this mobility. Unfortunately, the attention of the public is focused on forms of South-North mobility that are vilified in public discourse. This leads to simplistic discourses (the refugee crisis) and security oriented imaginaries (fortress Europe) that ignore the complex trajectories of those who cross the Mediterranean multiple times and in multiple directions. By studying the trajectories of people who have access to more fluid forms of mobility, because of their training, their dual citizenship, or their economic capital, we can understand the emergence of new forms of state power and the ambiguous role of labor markets and capital flows. In short, we can move beyond the narrative of fortress Europe and undocumented migration, and envision a Mediterranean space shaped by increased mobility and multiple points of friction.

What intrigued you when you started your academic journey? What were formative encounters and challenges?

I never really wanted to become an academic, but here I am. I guess that the formative moment was my encounter with Algeria. In France, unfortunately, the image of Algeria is constantly tarnished for political reasons. There is a lot of ignorance and racism that is now systematically instrumentalized by our government to distract the population from its own failings. But before and during my PhD, I had the opportunity to go to Algeria repeatedly, first for fun and then to conduct fieldwork, and I discovered a country with an inspiring revolutionary history, a profoundly moving egalitarian ethos, tremendous cultural diversity, etc… Doing research was not easy, but the generosity of Algerian people and the constant opportunity to learn new things made it particularly enjoyable. I was inspired by the resilience and political commitment of local militants, labor organizers, political activists, who strove to find new ways to support the society around them. I was also lucky to meet many colleagues in Algeria, some teaching and publishing locally, others coming from other parts of the world, including the US where I live now. As for the challenges, I have to say that having published a book on Algeria and tried to intervene in public discussions, I now realize that the state of politics in Europe is such that it becomes increasingly impossible to talk sense into our political leaders. As an academic studying societies in the global south, it is particularly depressing to see that the knowledge that we produce is of very little interest to those who hold power, when it’s not about extracting wealth or fighting “terrorism.”

How does your work relate to imaginations of the future, and how does it address questions of disparities?

A central element of my work is to go beyond the imagery of fortress Europe, which has been both a crucial imaginary driving policy-making within the EU (as if Europe could be insulated from the poly-crisis it has been instrumental in creating) as well as academic and political critics of our institutions and leaders. This narrative results in a binary understanding of the future, where Europe is a securitized island in a world of misery, environmental devastation, and political violence. I think that if we look at the Western Mediterranean, what we see is the emergence of a different kind of spatial, political, and economic order. One where mobility is accelerated, both for (some) humans, capital, and ideas. At the same time, Europe is far from having the monopoly of friction, coercion, immobilization. States in the Maghreb are not merely stuck in a situation of dependency. They display forms of sovereignty that challenge neoliberalization and liberal democratic norms. Meanwhile, highly mobile individuals belonging to various social classes (capitalists, cognitariat) ambition to change their societies and remake the state, and rely on various resources in order to do so. So, my ambition with this research is to reflect on the emergence of a variegated political-economic formations that trump established discourse on Fortress Europe, neoliberal globalization and alleged “Arab authoritarianism.”

What is the role of humanities and social sciences in times of upheaval? And what may be the task and the public of a scholar?

Ideally, humanities and the social sciences would have the ability to influence both society and policy-making. Unfortunately, we can see in Europe and in the USA that politicians have very little interest in actual academic knowledge, beyond a narrow set of economic and security questions. Therefore, I truly believe that it is pointless to think of our activity in terms of engagement with this public of policy-makers, who rely on the formatted “science” produced by think tanks and international organizations. What makes our work truly relevant is that our research shapes our engagement with the broader public and our teaching. Scholars of humanities and social science develop a complex, ambiguous understanding of the world (at least those who are doing their job correctly). We have to mobilize all kinds of means to share this complex, impressionist rendition of the world with the societies around us. It is therefore through partaking in cultural productions (exhibitions, writing in magazines, fictions) and education (through teaching, but also producing educational content available online) that we can actually contribute to the distribution of the knowledge we produce. In so doing, we join a Gramscian war of position, hoping that we can slowly contribute to turning the tide at the grassroots level, in combination with the war of movement waged politically to save our societies from their slow but steady drift toward neofascism.

Can you recommend a book, text, film, or exhibition that effectively addresses questions and imaginations of the future while dealing with inequalities in interesting ways?

I think that reading Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury Communism is a useful counterpoint to the growing visibility of far-right accelerationists such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. At the same time, classic mangas such as Gunnm and Ghost in the Shell offer interesting ways to think about inequalities, security, and cyborg identities. But beyond imagination, I think that the genocide in Gaza has given us a very clear picture of what the future will be if we allow the multiplication of militarized supremacist techno-capitalist hubs escaping international law. Unfortunately, this future is already well on its way.


Citation: The Political Activities of Dual Citizens in the Western Mediterranean, with a Focus on Tunisia, Algeria and France – 5in10 with Thomas Serres, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 10.04.2025, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/56585


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Forum Transregionale Studien (April 10, 2025). The Political Activities of Dual Citizens in the Western Mediterranean, with a Focus on Tunisia, Algeria and France – 5in10 with Thomas Serres. TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research. Retrieved April 20, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/13pzs


Forum Transregionale Studien

The Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien promotes the internationalization of research in the humanities and social sciences. It provides scope for collaboration among researchers with different regional and disciplinary perspectives and appoints researchers from all over the world as Fellows. More...

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