Chouftouhonna festival: feminist and queer artivism as transformative agency for a new politics of recognition in post-revolutionary Tunisia

In Tunisia, like in other MENA countries, feminism has opened the door to activism advocating for individual liberties and sexual rights. After the 2010-2011 revolution, a new wave of political activism has relied on new forms of cultural and creative practice to reconfigure the public space. This paper utilises ethnographic fieldwork to investigate the experience of the Chouftouhonna Feminist International Art Festival in Tunis as an example of ‘artivism’ – i.e. artistic activism – grounded in secular feminism and advancing LGBTQ+ claims. The first section of this paper explores the multiple ‘dimensions of subversion’ of the Festival. The second section aims to demonstrate why Chouftouhonna’s experience can be analysed as part of a political strategy contributing to a new imagination for a substantive egalitarian citizenship, through both ‘affirmative and transformative remedies to social injustice’. Because the Festival is meant as an expression of ‘transformative agency’, its founders and organizers strive for a new politics of recognition for women and sexual diversity in post-revolutionary Tunisia.