Delpazir, Alireza;
Sadeghi, Fatemeh;
(2024)
“Our House Was a Small Islamic Republic”: Social Policing and Resilient Resistance in Contemporary Iran.
Social Sciences
, 13
(8)
, Article 382. 10.3390/socsci13080382.
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Abstract
In this article, we address a question that has been frequently asked: Why is the Iranian government unable to defeat the struggle by women against the compulsory hijab? What distinguishes women’s resistance from other forms of freedom and justice movements? We address these questions by highlighting women’s “resilient resistance” within the family domain as both flexible and sustainable. The article examines how the domestication of politics and the politicization of family have interconnected dynamics in Iran, as illustrated by the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. It shows how women have shifted the Iranian family from a collaborator of oppressive patriarchal power to a more egalitarian structure to accommodate their protests against the compulsory hijab. As the catalysts for this change, they succeeded in discrediting the Islamic Republic’s moral discourse based on the compulsory hijab as a manifestation of modesty for women. They also validated their own morality based on personal choice. Using ethnographic fieldwork, including participatory observation and in-depth interviews with movement participants, this paper shows how women’s invisible yet significant resistance within the family has transformed this institution and profoundly affected the broader political landscape of Iran. It examines a unique case where social transformation drives larger political change.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | “Our House Was a Small Islamic Republic”: Social Policing and Resilient Resistance in Contemporary Iran |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3390/socsci13080382 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/socsci13080382 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Resilient resistance; compulsory hijab; social policing; transformative politics; personal choice |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > UCL Institute for Global Prosperity |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10195183 |
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