Can Religious Framing Reduce Anti-immigrant Sentiment in Tunisia?

• In Event: Religion and Political Behavior in Arab Countries

Abstract

In February 2023, Tunisian President Kais Saied painted black African migrants as a threat to Tunisia’s Islamic and Arab identities, using a discourse analogous to the ‘great replacement theory.’ Harassment and violence towards migrants ensued. Conversely, Tunisian Muslim social media users endeavored to counteract this securitization and improve attitudes towards migrants by highlighting the Prophet Muhammad’s identity as a refugee who fled from Mecca to Medina. We design a survey experiment to empirically investigate the potential of this religious framing to mitigate anti-immigrant xenophobia. This experiment, which will be incorporated into a face-to-face, nationally-representative survey in Tunisia in 2024, aims to explore whether such biographical (non-scriptural) religious narratives can positively influence attitudes toward immigrants of different identities. More generally, this paper argues that religion should not be viewed as an inherent belief system that independently affects perceptions of immigrants but rather as a more fluid set of beliefs that can be shaped through strategic framing.

Authors

• Mohamed-Dhia Hammami, Maxwell School, Syracuse University

• Sharan Grewal, American University