MECAM Fellow (2026–2027)
Project: Between the Square and the Café: Informal Spaces, Information Exchange, and the Deliberative Politics of Anti-Pollution Mobilisation in Southern Tunisia
Dr. Fidelia Danielle Renne
(King’s College London, Department of Political Economy, University of Oxford, Department of Politics and International Development/England)
Dr. Fidelia Danielle Renne is a Research Associate in Middle East Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) at the University of Oxford and a Lecturer at King’s College London, where she teaches Social Movements and the Political Economy of the Middle East. She completed her doctorate in International Development at the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID). Her research examines social movements, community development, and civil society networks, with particular attention to associational life, friendship, identity negotiation, and political engagement in the Global South. She has conducted extensive research in Lebanon on post-war youth, identity formation, place-making, and mobilisation, and is currently undertaking research in Tunisia, as a recipient of the Hazem Ben-Gacem Research Grant, on grassroots anti-pollution movements and local resistance practices.
Interdisciplinary Research Field (IRF): IRF IV « Ressources & Durabilité »
How do communities in resource-affected regions articulate alternative futures, navigate internal diversity, and resist the reproduction of extractive inequalities under the guise of sustainable development? While a growing body of literature examines digital activism and environmental campaigns, especially in the Global North, much less is known about the offline interactions that shape credibility, trust, and participation in localities in the Global South.
This project investigates longstanding grassroots environmental activism in Gabes, Tunisia, where European development agencies have more recently been promoting land- and water-intensive “green hydrogen” production to meet Europe’s energy needs. The local environmental movement contests green hydrogen and other industrial projects not only on distributive grounds but also by invoking claims to authority and belonging.
The project investigates the movement’s rhetoric, as well as how face-to-face exchanges generate credibility, circulate information, and negotiate internal divisions in order to articulate a collective voice under authoritarian constraints. Combining participatory, visual, and survey methods, it explores the deliberative and solidarity-building capacities of place-based activism as intertwined and mutually supportive processes of resistance.