2025
Project: The Politics of Migration: Framing Sub-Saharan Migrants in Tunisian Online Media
Dr. Imene Gannouni khemiri
( Assistant Professor, Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities, Manouba, University of Manouba / Tunisia )
Imene Gannouni Khemiri is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities, University of Manouba, Tunisia. She holds a Master’s degree and a Phd in cultural studies from the University of Manouba. Her doctoral research focused on the representation of Tunis in British travel writing (1815-1910). Her research interests include travel writing, migration studies, media studies and visual culture. She is the author of “Pretty as a Picture: Tunisian Landscape in the Travel Narratives of Temple (1835), Playfair (1877), and Ashbee and Graham (1887)”(2021). As a participant in the ‘Migrant in Transit’ program for emerging migration scholars in Tunisia, she has recently developed a strong interest in migration studies.
Project IRF II :Inequality & Mobility
This project explores the mobility-inequality nexus through an analysis of the mediatization and politicization of the contested sub-Saharan migration and the issue of ‘irregular’ migration in Tunisia. The study investigates the coverage of sub-Saharan migrants in English-speaking Tunisian online media outlets between January and December 2025. It also considers how these media narratives interact with broader geopolitical dynamics, including the externalization of EU borders and the implementation of IOM-led ‘voluntary return’ programs. By linking media discourse to larger structures of mobility control, the project addresses how media narratives frame migration governance, border security, and humanitarian concerns and how they contribute to legitimizing -or contesting- unequal access to mobility.