Overview

Based on extensive interviews and oral histories as well as archival sources, Women and the Islamic Republic challenges the dominant masculine theorizations of state-making in post-revolutionary Iran. Shirin Saeidi demonstrates that despite the Islamic Republic's non-democratic structures, multiple forms of citizenship have developed in post-revolutionary Iran. This finding destabilizes the binary formulation of democratization and authoritarianism which has not only dominated investigations of Iran, but also regime categorizations in political science more broadly. As non-elite Iranian women negotiate or engage with the state's gendered citizenry regime, the Islamic Republic is forced to remake, oftentimes haphazardly, its citizenry agenda. The book demonstrates how women remake their rights, responsibilities, and statuses during everyday life to condition the state-making process in Iran, showing women's everyday resistance to the state-making process.

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9781009013000

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Reviews

'By creatively examining the state through everyday encounters and women's accounts, this innovative study explores how women's engagements with the Iranian Republic – their 'acts of citizenship' – have secured rights and protections in uneven ways. In attending to the shifting and situated nature of gendered citizenship, Saeidi forges new ground in the theorization of the entanglements of rights and statecraft. It is a novel and important contribution to feminist political science.' Lori Allen, SOAS 'How do ordinary women contest, support and remake norms of citizenship in contemporary Iran? What role do they play in forming the state? Shirin Saeidi's important book provides detailed and thoughtful insight into the ways in which non-elite women in Iran have practiced citizenship particularly in the wake of the Iran-Iraq war. A wonderful contribution to citizenship studies and feminist debates.' Humeira Iqtidar, King's College London 'Women and the Islamic Republic is a compelling account of how the Iran-Iraq war shaped the rights, roles, and responsibilities of non-elite Iranian women, a topic that has eluded much scholarship. Drawing from a unique archive, Saeidi underscores the importance of women's voices in shaping the post-revolutionary state and the meaning of citizenship.' Arzoo Osanloo, University of Washington 'This book will appeal to those interested in the gender politics of modern Iran. It may surprise those who assume Iranian women are subservient to men.… Highly recommended.' G. M. Farr, Choice

Author Information

Shirin Saeidi is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Arkansas. She has published articles in journals including International Journal of Middle East Studies, International Studies Review, and Millennium: Journal of International Studies. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Citizenship Studies.

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