As Tunisia celebrates a historic democratic election, its emerging political parties have learned that overcoming decades of authoritarian rule requires starting small, and slowly building trust. This summer we followed one of Tunisia’s emerging political parties – Afek Tounes – as it journeyed into the city that sparked the Arab Spring, and learned this lesson first-hand. Created in collaboration with Jonathan Schienberg and Rabiî Kalboussi.
From streetsweepers to rappers to activist bloggers my TunisiaLive colleague Asma Ghribi and I hit the streets of Tunis to get peoples’ perspectives on Tunisia’s new information freedoms.
How do we enable people to tell their stories while preserving values such as freedom of information and privacy? I joined others in sharing our thoughts to promote the Citizen Media competition organized by Ashoka and Google. Their editors created this neat video.
On Friday a delegation of American executives, led by General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, traveled to Tunisia to explore investment opportunities. What’s driving this high profile interest in Tunisia by powerful American executives? I attended the delegation’s press conference at the US Embassy in Tunis to find out, and created the following podcast for TunisiaLive. To listen, click the icon below:
On Monday I joined the TunisiaLive team for an inside look at the trial of deposed Tunisian President Ben Ali, whose 23-year authoritarian rule came to an end on January 14. As both a correspondent and as a Tunisian citizen I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to tell a story about this remarkable day.
rows of green vine stitched into the ground
an unsteady wind hollows out bones
leaving them ringing a cold fear
the grey undercoat of a Peugeot sedan sparkles in blunt sunlight
as it rides a rail of intention, reaction
through a countryside freeze-dried by revolution
the countryside
light, blocky, its capillaries stretch to wick up
moisture from the backs of beasts who pass through it
its verdancy sticking to hulking bodies like a fresh pollen
like marrow extracted through centrifugal force
and spread over the smooth elbow of a baguette
forward, another dawn in Tunisia
How does an unemployed youth — disenfranchised under a corrupt dictatorship — find voice and purpose in the months after a popular revolt? What does a community learn about itself – and those around it – as it engages in direct and honest conversation for the first time? How does a government negotiate letting its citizens speak their mind, and create a stable and functioning society?
In the wake of the Arab world’s first successful overthrow of a dictator, and through the personal narratives of strangers I have yet to meet, I’ve arrived in Tunisia to find out. Over the next three months I hope to share a few stories from the wake of the Arab Spring — that hot, foggy space between revolutions and institutions.
For fellow ethnographers (and design enthusiasts in general), one of the best design references I’ve seen. A bootleg of Stanford d.school‘s “Design Bootcamp,” a course which serves as the foundation of their curriculum. A great overview of design thinking and related exercises, as published (click here) by the d.school itself under the Creative Commons license.
This summer I drove across America in search of people have taken a risk to turn a passion into a career. From an export merchant turned baker in Chicago, to an electrical engineer turned pastor in Tulsa, I found stories that changed my perspective on both the benefits – and challenges – of entrusting in a motto I’ve long held dear, “behind every passion lies a business model.”
In a recent survey conducted by Manpower International, five out of six Americans intend to seek a new job in the coming year. If you are among those who’d like your new job to be rooted in a deep passion of yours, I hope the candid perspectives captured in this mini documentary may help you to make a more informed – and inspired – choice.
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