Abstract
As in the case of many contemporary movements, Iranian women’s activism is connected into local, international and transnational politics. However, Iranian women’s views of transnational solidarity and perceptions of foreign support for women’s rights in Iran are complicated by the experience of Western foreign policy of the last three decades. This is perceived to have claimed to support women’s rights and liberalism against what is often described as a “conservative theocratic state” but has, in some ways, made it more difficult for women to organise “on the ground” and strengthened the hand of conservative forces both materially and ideologically. Two facets of Western foreign policy towards Iran will be discussed and analysed in relation to their impact on women; firstly, this article will investigate the impact of sanctions and the international isolation of the country since 1979 on women’s organisations. Secondly, it will analyse neo-liberalism and the changing nature of the Iranian state, as well as political elites. Utilising interviews with Iranian women activists conducted in 2009, in addition to April 2015, the article will discuss views of transnational solidarity and the diverse political strategies utilised by women activists and organisations in Iran today.
Highlights
I analyse the impact of sanctions and neo-liberalism on perceptions of transnational solidarity and foreign support among Iranian women activists who are working in diverse organisations, such as the One Million Signatures Campaign, the Stop Stoning Forever Campaign, and Mothers for Peace
My analysis is based on fieldwork I conducted in Iran in 2008, 2009 and 2015 where I interviewed twenty nine activists involved in women’s groups, reformist organisations, journalists, academics, leaders of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and worker and student activists
Despite the fact that they are in favour of international cooperation, they argued that the crisis facing the region, in addition to neo-liberalism and rising poverty levels have made it much more difficult for activists to organise and build strong movements that could oppose the policies of the state: The civil society and the movements which were suppressed under Ahmadinejad have not found the opportunity to mobilise and raise their voices
Summary
I analyse the impact of sanctions and neo-liberalism on perceptions of transnational solidarity and foreign support among Iranian women activists who are working in diverse organisations, such as the One Million Signatures Campaign, the Stop Stoning Forever Campaign, and Mothers for Peace. Similar to other contemporary social movements, several groups within the Iranian women’s movement have been connected into and influenced by transnational politics This has been documented by writers, such as Nayereh Tohidi and Valentine Moghadam, who have researched Iranian women’s groups’ participation in international conferences, their activism and campaigns around the implementation of international conventions on women’s rights and human rights, such the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the role played by the diaspora [1,2]. These works have been immensely useful in documenting women’s involvement in transnational organisations and networks. Iranian women activist’s views of transnational solidarity are not due to the insularity of organisations or political outlooks but to the lived experience of Western foreign policy in the country and the region
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