Italian families in Tunisia, a story of multiple crossings through and beyond the Mediterranean Sea

This contribution focuses on the historical Italian migration to Tunisia. So, it firstly offers a short contextualization of the migratory trends and of the relations between the two Mediterranean countries, accounting for the Italian presence in Tunisia before and after the latter’s independence in 1956. In the second half of the XIX century and the first half of the XX century, many Italians, especially from Sicily, migrated to Tunisia in order to improve their livelihoods. The contribution’s main aim is to illustrate this story, by presenting the specific case of a Sicilian family who used to live in Tunis and then scattered around the Mediterranean, as a consequence of the restrictions imposed upon the Italian population by the independence’s agreements. For this purpose, different data are combined: first-hand memoirs, memoirs reported in literary or academic works, historical documentation, and visual material stored by the family itself. Overall, the contribution reconstructs a story made of multiple crossings, which may contribute to the discussion on transnational families and transnational lifestyles from an historical perspective.