Marta Dominguez Diaz, "Tunisia's Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)

June 25, 2026

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5 min read

In the early 2010s, anthropologist Marta Dominguez Diaz kept hearing the same surprising line during fieldwork in Tunisia. When she said she was from Spain, Tunisians would reply, "I'm from Spain, too." They meant it literally: they identified as Andalusians, descendants of Muslims expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the 17th century. Yet when she searched the academic literature, these people did not exist. "There is not a single study of these people," she recalls. That intellectual puzzle—are they making it up, or has everyone simply overlooked them?—became the seed of her book, Tunisia's Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority.

Who the Andalusians Are—and Are Not

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What you'll learn

1 (04:11) **Research Origin & Intellectual Puzzle** - Marta explains how personal anecdotes in Tunisia (locals saying "I'm from Spain too") revealed an unstudied community, leading to a project combining ethnographic and historical interests.
2 (08:54) **Historical Background: Al-Andalus & Morisco Expulsion** - Concise overview of Muslim rule in Spain (711-1492), forced conversions (1502-1526), and the Edicts of Expulsion (1609-1614).
3 (15:56) **How Andalusians Relate to Their History** - The expulsion remains significant, but Andalusians today know more about their community's history in Tunisia than about Al-Andalus itself.
4 (18:35) **Why "Andalusian" Not "Morisco"** - The term "Andalusian" is chosen out of respect for community self-identification and to avoid the pejorative origins of "Morisco."
5 (23:21) **Methodology: Historical Anthropology & Micro-History** - Marta developed a creative, mixed-method approach combining archival work with ethnographic fieldwork.
6 (29:47) **Language as Identity Marker & De-Hispanization** - The Ottoman authorities prioritized Arabization over Islamization, leading to the complete loss of Spanish/Catalan/Aragonese by the mid-18th century.
7 (36:40) **Beylical System & Political Sovereignty** - The decentralized Ottoman/Husaynid system gave Andalusians a distinct, autonomous political structure through the *Shaykh al-Andalus* and later the *qa'idats*.

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Show Notes

Tunisia’s Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority (Edinburgh UP, 2025) tells the captivating story of those Andalusians, descendants of Muslims expelled from Spain in the seventeenth century, who sought refuge in Tunisia. Rather than simply replicating Iberian traditions, Andalusian culture in Tunisia stands as a vibrant and evolving phenomenon, shaped by complex dynamics of interaction and adaptation over four centuries. The book dismantles the romanticised view of Andalusian culture as a mere transplantation of al-Andalus, analysing distinctive cultural features that distinguish Andalusians as an ethnic group within Tunisia’s diverse social fabric. Drawing on historical records and contemporary ethnographic data, including personal accounts and family archives, the book sheds light on how Andalusians navigate their unique cultural position amidst a Tunisian national narrative often focused on Arabo-Muslim homogeneity. By examining the complexities of cultural preservation and assimilation, the book offers a nuanced perspective on Andalusian identity, revealing its dynamism and resilience in the face of changing social, political, and economic circumstances.

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