Sacrificial heroes: Masculinity, class, and waste picking in Iran

Abstract

This article examines how five male waste pickers in Khorramabad, Iran, negotiate the stigmatization and criminalization associated with their work against the backdrop of escalating social inequality. I demonstrate how the men use embodied compliance and discursive narratives of masculine self-sacrifice to position themselves as innocent, sacrificial heroes. In changing the narrative from one of humiliation to valor, the men both amplify the classed and gendered hierarchy while simultaneously critiquing the social order that has led to their marginalization. This gendered identity work arises as a response to both classism and everyday occupational denigration, enabling waste pickers to construct distinct moral selves in Iran’s current global moment, but at the expense of disparaging devalued others and creating new forms of inequality.