Philatelic Iconogeography : The Example Of Tunisia.

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https://goscf.com/t/81960 br /




Bib : The Iconography of Tunisian Postage Stamps
Authors : Ton Dietz and Dick Foeken
Academia

Postage stamps can be interpreted as a window on a country's identity, as viewed by the authorities in charge of issuing these stamps. Often they express images of a country's leaders' 'state of mind' as stamp
issuing authorities are generally close to the country's leadership.

As leadership changes, and also the opinions about what elements of a nation's identity should be highlighted, the images on postage stamps
can also be seen as an expression of changing cultural and political identities.

Stamps are miniature advertisements, both for internal consumption (people using these stamps get constant reminders of the preferred 'national identity' as expressed on stamps), and for foreign consumption (people abroad get
messages of a country's self-expression, both culturally and politically).



Conclusion
Cultural geography currently has a lot of attention for the construction of images about places, countries, regions and peoples. In the era of globalisation, reflection of (self-)identification and cultural specification has grown.

Postage stamps are one of the windows on a country's identity
and self-expression and – as we hope to have shown – a window with ever-changing displays behind its frames. The Tunisian postage stamps illustrate this quite well

I agree with the conclusion, but I doubt Tunisian stamps depicting geographical locations are proof of that. I think the same could have been written for most countries' stamps. Many countries issue such stamps to promote tourism. At the same time, they may issue stamps that have very little to do with geography but that are a much better reflection of the country's identity.

I think this happens both in authoritarian and democratic countries. My own country and Germany are examples of countries where the 'rulers' have hardly any influence over the postal authorities. Still, many stamps reflect social issues that are part of the identity of the countries. Ireland's stamps are a strong example of its culture and how that has changed: e.g., Marian Year stamps in the early years, gay rights in recent years. It has issued relatively few stamps of historic sites. Stamps of authoritarian countries as Tunisia was, tend to ignore the social issues. They reflect the authorities' policies. Whether that is a national identity is questionable.

Spain issued and issues many stamps depicting historic or natural tourist sites. Both during the Franco years and now, they reflect the identity and promote tourism. Now, tourism is part of Spain's identity. In the 1960s, it was less so. Stamps depicting tourist sites were mostly promotional. However, by depicting mostly historic sites, they also reflected the country's identity. At the same time, many stamps of the Franco era reflected the identity of a large part of Spain, but also were exactly what the other large part did not consider its identity.

Edit: added Ireland example.