Being Ottoman: Family and the politics of modernity in the province of Tunisia

This dissertation studies the political culture of the ruling family in Ottoman Tunisia from roughly 1770 to 1840. It re-imagines an era that nationalist and colonialist perspectives have insisted on labeling the "pre-colonial," by emphasizing Tunisia's position in the Ottoman Empire. Being Ottoman is a way to conceptualize the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that prioritizes shifting imperial identities, cosmopolitan elite culture, and the construction of modernity as a global process. Focusing on the family allows me to use feminist and gender theory to demonstrate the relevance of women's social, economic and political activities and counter the tendency to view women as marginal to Middle Eastern societies in general and Tunisia in particular.; The first chapter begins with the incorporation of Tunisia as a province in the Ottoman Empire in terms of broader geo-strategic and political struggles in the Mediterranean. It demonstrates the political nature of the family and the importance of networking in the first century of Ottoman rule (and how marriage alliances and slave recruitment allowed for continuity between one regime to the next). Chapter two combines materialist and discursive approaches to the palace expense registers to illustrate women's managerial role and the primacy of households within the palace. In chapter three, I look at how the ruling family established local roots through Ottoman and Islamic customs of charitable benevolence and justice. The fourth chapter frames the bey of Tunis within the global phenomenon of colonial expansion (and a globally constituted modernity) suggesting new perspectives on his ability to resist European encroachment. Finally, in the fifth chapter I explore the position of Tunisia within discourses of Orientalism, race and blackness in order to interrogate its position in relation to the Middle East and Africa, and to challenge the boundaries of area studies.