To many, Tunisia symbolizes the success of the intense popular discontent that sparked the Arab Spring. There, in 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a young fruit vendor, set himself on fire, leading to protests that soon had a domino effect in neighboring Arab states. The subsequent ousting of Tunisia’s president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, put the country on the path to democratic reform, and just last year the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its role in helping to build that democracy.  Yet several years on, the state-controlled mines in the capital of the Gafsa Governorate tell a different story. Protesters there have been staging sit-ins, hurting the country’s No. 1 export — phosphate — since even before the Tunisian revolution. Two years ago, Zied Ben Romdhane — who was originally trained as a businessman in Tunis until he found his voice as a photographer in 2008 — started to notice the activity. And he began to wonder about the root of the labor tensions in a country where the unemployment rate remains over 15 percent.  “I think that this place was the first inspiration of the possibility to have a democracy in the Arab world,” he said.  When Mr. Ben Romdhane arrived at the mines in 2014, he saw heavy smog hanging over the land. “It was a river of waste,” he said. He also noticed tents set up by protesters who had been staging sit-ins and hunger strikes to demand higher pay. But he quickly learned that the dispute went beyond labor, with tensions dating to the late 19th century, when the French first colonized Tunisia.  “It’s not just a question of the economy and social movement,” he said. “In the beginning this village was nothing. It was just desert, rocks and mountains. There was no water, no agriculture, no civilization. And people came just to work in the mines during French occupation.”  The problem, he says, is that the French brought workers from Algeria, Morocco and Libya, but kept them divided in order to maintain control.  “They created conflict in the community,” he said. “It was a benefit for the French occupation to not have that union because if there was a union of workers, for sure they would fight for their rights.”  According to Mr. Ben Romdhane, the division is still apparent more than a century later.  “It is the only place in Tunisia where we have this kind of tribal conflict,” he said. “People really don’t understand where it came from.”  Mr. Ben Romdhane spent two years learning about the history of the mines in a project he calls “West of Life,” which has since been supported by the Arab Documentary Photography Program. He hopes to publish these images in a book.  While labor tensions are a running theme, Mr. Ben Romdhane also found moments of levity: He photographed a crack in a government wall to show what he describes as “dark humor.”  “You feel like it’s so fragile, that everything is made by hand,” he said.  He also photographed a young boy playing in a costume made of cardboard boxes, and explained that residents, especially the young, find creative ways to fill their time.  He says he thinks his own feelings about the government may have influenced how he approached the project, as he tends to side with the laborers.  “I think that the Tunisian government is first responsible for these economic and social problems,” he said. “I think when we will have participant democracy and a transparent government, we can start thinking and cooperate with the people.”  Follow @nytimesphoto on Twitter. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram.
“West of Life” looks at the troubled history of a region in Tunisia where protests by miners preceded the uprising that led to the Arab Spring.