Cultural Mediation for the Safeguarding and Enhancement of Tunisian Heritage: Citizen Initiatives (Ethnologies; vol. 38, no. 1-2)

Since its independence, Tunisia has invested major efforts to include the valuation of the cultural heritage in a prospect of economic development betting on the tourism sector. The diverse governmental institutions concerned by the protection and the valuation of the patrimonial heritage, such as the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Tourism, set up several initiatives of cultural mediation for that purpose. Numerous reports and publications mention these data, but little is written on the important contribution of citizens and community organizations in the field of cultural mediation. Yet, the associative movement was always strong in Tunisia and has been strengthened increasingly since the revolution of 2010.

From visits and from personal meetings held on the ground and completed by recent data gathered on the Web, on blogs, social media pages or also on professional Websites, we propose to examine the place of citizen participation in cultural mediation in Tunisia. We shall take, for that purpose, examples of concrete projects.