Social Reproductive Contraband

Despite the discourse on “democratic backsliding” and the dashed hopes of “democratic reform,” one of the most significant and lasting effects of the 2011 Tunisian revolution is the critique of a skewed development model (menwel etanmia) which has long favored coastal areas to the detriment of inner swaths of the territory (Ayeb 2011). Perceived by their inhabitants as marginalized because of orchestrated state neglect, the power of grassroots organizing to alter this development model has created historic precedents – for example, the experience of the social solidarity economy in Jemna, “the oasis of the revolution” (Kerrou 2021). Beyond Jemna, however, regional disparities persist. In regions still suffering from state divestment, how do people make ends meet? Attentive to women’s roles in inventing and sustaining everyday survival methods, this essay focuses on Mbarka, an entrepreneurial woman from the southern region of Kebili, who created a small business of illicit transborder trade. Carried out by women living in or connected to families and kin in border regions from El Kef to Kebili, I analyze these activities as social reproductive contraband that sustains local livelihoods and gestures at an “oppositional practice” (Ismail 2014) of citizenship. Conceptually, social reproductive contraband captures the everyday entanglement of life, labor, and work from the Global South, not just as a product of broader economic and geopolitical processes, but also as a structuring dimension of these processes.

I met Mbarka during a research sojourn in southern Tunisia in October 2023. It was my third research trip to the South after two periods of extended fieldwork in 2017 and 2021. The kin of a friend’s cousin, Mbarka worked at the Governorate of Kebili. One morning, I was supposed to meet an official responsible for regional development initiatives at the Governorate. He never showed up, so I dropped by Mbarka’s office for coffee. As we discussed Lebanese politics and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a colleague entered to hand her 50 dinars for a set of bed linens she had purchased. Enthusiastically, Mbarka pulled out her phone and showed me the Facebook page she had created for her business showcasing the items she sold: kitchen utensils, tea and coffee sets, bed linens, pajamas, towels, prayer mats, and curtains. She financed her business using a combination of rotating credit and saving associations (ROSCAs) (Hossein and Christabell 2022) and microloans. Most of her clients were neighbors, colleagues at the Governorate, as well as teachers who started many of the ROSCAs in Kebili. Apart from steady financing, what sustained Mbarka’s business was a solid client base composed of her vetted female social networks – her business was a classic way of making her social capital productive (Rankin 2002). 

Social reproductive concerns motivated Mbarka to launch this business, specifically the desire to secure quality education for her two boys at a private university in Tunis. Social reproduction here is, at the most basic level, “the biological reproduction of the labor force, both generationally and on a daily basis, through the acquisition and distribution of the means of existence, including food, shelter, clothing and health care” (Katz 2001:711). Not only were the items she sold used to turn brick and concrete structures into warm homes or to care for children and adults, contributing to the social reproductive labor women expend to nurture their families, but the profits she made also financed her children’s education. Thus, Mbarka’s decisions illuminate the ways “work and life pressures co-constitute each other in the everyday lives of workers, families and communities in various parts of the Global South” (Mezzadri et al. 2022:1789).

Mbarka procured the merchandise she sold across the border from Oued Souf, Algeria. Every two to three weeks, a group of four to six women paid a louagiste, a van driver specialized in transborder trade,1 to organize the trip to Oued Souf, which the group of women completed in a little over 24 hours with little to no sleep. The trip included the roundtrip to Algeria, the stop for inspection and fee payment to border agents arranged by the louagiste, and time to fulfill client orders and replenish their stocks. In Oued Souf, Mbarka also purchased some items for her household consumption. When basic staples like cooking oil, sugar, and flour were missing in Tunisia, she bought them across the border. She also stocked up on cleaning supplies and trash bags, which were cheaper there. “As long as the borders are open, I will keep working,” she told me. 

The transborder trade, which has been a lifeline for many in these border regions, has not been immune to the effects of geopolitical instability. After the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya in particular, the terms of this trade were significantly altered (Meddeb 2016). The new government cracked down on the illicit circulation of drugs, narcotics, and alcohol, provoking public unrest (Meddeb 2021), and illicit transborder trade which enriched large traders is often conflated with the economy of survival that sustains people living in these border regions. 

The clampdown tightened the noose on small traders – the latter survived because they were engaged in social reproductive contraband activities at the center of which were women. Research exploring the gendered analysis of cross-border trade in Kebili shows that what incentivized women to join the trade was not accumulation but rather the necessity to support adult children who, because of structural economic conditions, have yet to set out on their own independent lives (Ben Zina et al. 2019). When discussing their businesses, interlocutors, such as Mbarka, insisted on the licit character of their activities, which were the only choices they had when confronted with state neglect. The economic agency they acquired because of their social reproductive contraband businesses reconfigured their normative understandings of the state, and of their rights and obligations. In this way, it constituted the infrastructure for oppositional practices of citizenship post-revolution.

• 1. Louagistes are drivers specialized in this cross-border trade. With their minivans, they organize trips for four to five women, leaving space to store the merchandise. Their relationships with border control agents on the Tunisian, as well as the Algerian sides, allow them to negotiate the appropriate bribe amounts for the safe passage of the merchandise. Mbarka’s account about these transporters coincides with the accounts of Ben Zina et al. (2019).