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The Politics of Migration: Framing Sub-Saharan Migrants in Tunisian Online Media – 5in10 with Imene Gannouni Khemiri

Imene Gannouni khemiri is a short-term Fellow at Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM) for the 2025 cohort and an Assistant Professor in the English Department at the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities, University of Manouba, Tunisia. She holds a Master’s degree and a PhD in cultural studies from the University of Manouba with her doctoral research focusing on the representation of Tunis in British travel writing (1815–1910). Her research interests include travel writing, migration studies, media studies, and visual culture. She has recently published The Making of “migration crisis”: Representing sub-Saharan Migrants in Tunisian Online Media Outlets (2025) in Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture. As a participant in The Migrant in Transit program for emerging migration scholars in Tunisia, she has recently developed a strong interest in migration studies.

A woman with dark hair in a purple sweater.
Imene Gannouni khemiri. Photo: Private.

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

My work examines how media discourses produce a migration crisis narrative, a framing that racializes migrants and represents them as the undesirable ‘other.’ More specifically, I investigate how Tunisian news outlets represent migration and mobility within a Global South–to–Global South context. Tunisia has recently experienced a significant shift in migration patterns, becoming not only a country of departure but also a destination and transit point for sub-Saharan migrants. In response to this shift, Tunisian media outlets have adopted a set of discursive strategies that mirror media narratives about migration in the Global North. My research analyzes these strategies to understand how migrants are framed in a set of Tunisian online media outlets.

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

What intrigued me when I started my academic journey was the question of how women are represented in the media. In my MA research, I explored this by analyzing how British newspapers constructed ‘femininity’ through their coverage of Princess Diana. Under the guidance of my supervisor, Professor Mark Lilly, I was encouraged to pursue feminist media studies and eventually carried out one of the early projects in this field at the Faculty of Letters, Arts, and Humanities in Manouba. Since then, my interest in media studies has deepened, particularly in its interdisciplinary dimensions. I have become increasingly fascinated by how media shape and circulate knowledge about gender, race, and ethnicity. I am particularly interested in how these representations relate to, reinforce and normalize asymmetrical power relations.

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

My work examines media representations of migration to interrogate how mediated mobility becomes entangled with asymmetrical power relations. Nowadays, different discourses around migration have often been politicized within a security frame that sustains the status quo and entrenches unequal power dynamics through divisive categories of “us” versus “them”. My research seeks to reimagine these narratives in ways that challenge exclusion and open space for more equitable perspectives. By reframing such discourses, it becomes possible to foster a more inclusive understanding of mobility in the future.

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

The humanities and social sciences are facing significant changes today. It is important that they adapt to the digital age and the rise of artificial intelligence. Moreover, they should be more responsive to pressing political and social crises, especially when human rights are under threat. Their role is to foster critical thinking and different ways of seeing issues that institutional and media discourses often gloss over. Scholars must be creative and critical, moving beyond traditional boundaries to engage with digital tools and interdisciplinary approaches. While the public must cultivate media literacy to resist manipulation and descend misinformation.

5. 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 recommend Homi K. Bhabha’s essay Migration, Rights, and Survival: The Importance of the Humanities Today (2018), which offers a reflection on mobility in the context of the Mediterranean migration crisis. Bhabha analyzes migration not merely in geopolitical terms but as a profoundly human experience marked by anguish, despair, and the nexus between mobility and statelessness. In this respect, the humanities remain indispensable to the future, carrying the responsibility to reflect upon and question power asymmetries, while restoring the humanity of migrants in a truly humane world.


Citation: Imene Gannouni khemiri, The Politics of Migration: Framing Sub-Saharan Migrants in Tunisian Online Media – 5in10 with Imene Gannouni khemiri, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 26.02.2026, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/64490


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Forum Transregionale Studien (March 12, 2026). The Politics of Migration: Framing Sub-Saharan Migrants in Tunisian Online Media – 5in10 with Imene Gannouni Khemiri. TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research. Retrieved April 18, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/15v4i


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