Everyday resistance and counterpublics: Female leadership and political rhetoric in post-revolutionary Tunisia

This study conceptualizes everyday rhetorical resistance as a practice through which marginalized political actors generate collective agency and reimagine the grounds of participation under authoritarian constraint. Through rhetorical analysis of Olfa Hamdi’s 2024 presidential campaign in Tunisia, I introduce the concept of the embryonic counterpublic to describe fragile but formative publics that remain vulnerable to state repression. Hamdi’s campaign discourse linking sovereignty, youth inclusion, and ethical responsibility demonstrates how everyday rhetorical performances can cultivate a sense of belonging that challenges both patriarchal exclusion and executive domination. As such, this study shows that rhetorical agency can emerge from routine acts of public expression and that women’s leadership in constrained contexts carries the potential to transform populist voice into a politics of care and democratic possibility. The analysis ultimately shows how rhetorical practice becomes a vital site for imagining democratic possibility, showing that even within narrowing political spaces, everyday discourse can enact new forms of participation, solidarity, and collective purpose.