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Alternative Histories: Narratives from the Middle East and Mediterranean

Tunisia's AndalusiansThe Cultural Identity of a North African Minority

By Marta Domínguez Díaz

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£24.99

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Published 31 January 2027

About this book

Explores the cultural identity of the Andalusian community in post-revolutionary Tunisia

  • Offers a fresh perspective on the Andalusians in Tunisia, challenging the prevailing notion that they fully assimilated into the Arabo-Muslim majority by the 18th century
  • Argues that Andalusians have maintained a distinct ethnic identity to the present day
  • Emphasizes the importance of family archives, oral histories, and heritage associations in preserving Andalusians' memory and shaping their understanding of the past
  • Provides a nuanced and dynamic understanding of Andalusian identity in Tunisia, revealing its resilience and dynamism over four centuries

Tunisia’s Andalusians tells the captivating story of those Andalusians, descendants of Muslims expelled from Spain in the seventeenth century, who sought refuge in Tunisia. Rather than simply replicating Iberian traditions, Andalusian culture in Tunisia stands as a vibrant and evolving phenomenon, shaped by complex dynamics of interaction and adaptation over four centuries. The book dismantles the romanticised view of Andalusian culture as a mere transplantation of al-Andalus, analysing distinctive cultural features that distinguish Andalusians as an ethnic group within Tunisia’s diverse social fabric.

Drawing on historical records and contemporary ethnographic data, including personal accounts and family archives, the book sheds light on how Andalusians navigate their unique cultural position amidst a Tunisian national narrative often focused on Arabo-Muslim homogeneity. By examining the complexities of cultural preservation and assimilation, the book offers a nuanced perspective on Andalusian identity, revealing its dynamism and resilience in the face of changing social, political, and economic circumstances.

Reviews

This book fills an important gap in the study of the contemporary reality of the Morisco-Andalusian community in Tunisia. Through a skilful anthropological approach, the author demonstrates that the memory of the expulsion and its aftermath remains deeply resonant among the descendants of those expelled, more than 415 years after their forced displacement.
Combining both history and anthropology to explore issues of ethnicity and group formation, this book substantially enriches our understanding of those who link their identity to the historical experience of al-Andalus. Part of the Moriscos expelled in the 17th century from Spain settled in Tunis and Marta Domínguez Díaz takes us on a fascinating journey across the communities they formed there, how they interacted with the local population, how they changed and how they talked - and talk – about themselves.
In this book Marta Dominguez consistently reveals the role of the Andalusian communities in Tunisia as well as their transformations and continuities. The concept of identity is discussed in an original study of historical anthropology where material culture, memory and politics construct the very notion of Andalusian between present and past.
Table of contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Note on Transliteration

Introduction: Andalusians as a Minority

  1. Mudéjares, Moriscos and Andalusians: The Historical Making of a Minority (Eighth to Early Seventeenth Centuries)
  2. Shaykhdoms: Andalusian Identity and Tribal Politics
  3. Testour: Social Relations in an Andalusian Town
  4. The Shashiyya and the Demise of Andalusian Material Culture
  5. Andalusian Traditions: Between Cultural Loss and Revival
  6. Andalusians and the Past: Doing Ethnicity through Memory

Epilogue: The Changing Nature of Andalusian Identity

Bibliography
Index

About the author

Marta Domínguez Díaz

Marta Domínguez Díaz is a Senior Lecturer in Islamic Studies (Anthropology) at the University of St. Gallen. She holds a BA from Barcelona and an MA and PhD from SOAS, London. Previously, she has held research and teaching positions at SOAS and the Woolf Institute in Cambridge and collaborated with the Religious Studies Department at the University of Vienna. Her research interests encompass cultural identities and ethnicity in North Africa, Sufism (North African and European), Islam in Europe, Ritual Studies, Comparative Religion, and Muslim-Jewish Relations. Her publications include, Women in Sufism: Female Religiosities in a Transnational Order (Routledge, 2015) and numerous academic articles in her fields of expertise.

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