Jörg Gertel (Prof. Dr.) is a professor of Arabic studies and economic geography at Universität Leipzig. His education took him to the universities of Damascus, Cairo and Khartoum. He also taught and conducted research at Universität Freiburg and several times in Seattle and Auckland. His research focuses on the wider Mediterranean region and questions of food security, mobility and market dynamics, and the situation of youth and young adults.
Katharina Grüneisl (Dr.) is a postdoctoral research fellow in Geography at the University of Nottingham. Her current research examines gendered relations of work in Jordan's industrial zones for export-oriented garment manufacturing. She completed a PhD in Human Geography at Durham University in 2021 and has since held postdoctoral positions at Universität Leipzig and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. Her dissertation project examines urban change through the lens of the used clothing economy in Tunisia's capital city.

After the Arab Revolutions in 2011, Tunisia became a symbol of freedom and justice and thus the hope of an entire region. Now, the picture has been reversed: Political freedoms are being curtailed and the economy is in disarray, especially after the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. In the face of expanding inequality, resentment and attacks against ¿Others¿ fall on fertile ground. More than ever, mobility becomes contested - shaping spatial movements, social positions and discourses of the self - while young people, in particular, desire to leave the country. The contributors to this volume investigate the meaning of capabilities and aspirations to comprehend the histories of their erosion, but also to reveal alternative ways of imagining futures.