Iran's Struggles for Social Justice: Economics, Agency, Justice, Activism

by Peyman Vahabzadeh (Editor)

Overview

This interdisciplinary volume offers a range of studies spanning the various historical, political, legal, and cultural features of social justice in Iran, and proposes that the present-day realities of life in Iran could not be farther from the promises of the Iranian Revolution. The ideals of social justice and participatory democracy that galvanized a resilient nation in 1979 have been abandoned as an avaricious ruling elite has privatized the economy, abandoned social programs and subsidy payments for the poor, and suppressed the struggles of women, workers, students, and minorities for equality. At its core, Iran’s Struggles for Social Justice seeks to educate and to develop a new discourse on social justice in Iran.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319830162
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	07/11/2018
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2017
Pages:	323
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Peyman Vahabzadeh is Associate Professor of Sociology at University of Victoria, Canada. His recent books include A Guerrilla Odyssey: Modernization, Secularism, Democracy and the Fadai Period of National Liberation in Iran, 1970-1979 (2010), Exilic Meditations: Essays on A Displaced Life (2013), and Parviz Sadri: A Political Biography (2015; in Persian).

Table of Contents

Preface.- Introduction. How to Approach This Book.- 1. Historical and Conceptual Preparations for a Multidisciplinary Study of Social Justice in Iran.- 2. Gazing Upon the Land of Oil Through the Prism of Structure, Elite Action, and Civil Society.- 3. The Unmaking of the Iranian Working Class since the 1990s.- 4. Charity or Mass Mobilization? Public Religion and the Struggle for Economic Justice.- 5. Iran’s Cooperative Movement: Agony of Development.- 6. Social Justice, Anti-imperialist, Racist, Persiancentric, and Shi‘i-centric Discursive Formations of the Ideal Citizen, and Iranian School Textbooks: A Social Biography Response.- 7. Justice Interrupted: The University and the Imam.- 8. Ethical-Political Praxis: Social Justice and the Resistant Subject in Iran.- 9. Intergenerational Memory in Children of the Jacaranda Tree.- 10. Social Media as a Site of Transformative Politics and Political Dissent: Iranian Women’s Online Contestations.- 11. Performative agency: A Realization of anObjective Clash of ‘Social Justice’ Discourses or a Requiem for a Subjective Silence.- 12. The Voice of the Workers: Iran’s Labour Movement and Reflections on the Project-Seasonal Workers’ Union of Abadan, 1979-1980.- 13. An Unfinished Odyssey: The Iranian Student Movement’s Struggles for Social Justice.- 14. The Left’s Contribution to Social Justice in Iran: A Brief Historical Overview.- 15. Iran: Multiple Sources of a Grassroots Social Democracy?.- 16. Social Justice and Democracy in Iran: In Search of the Missing Link.- Afterword. Social Justice in Iran: Further Research.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A key element informing the Iranian revolution of 1979 was the ideal of ‘social justice.’ No more. This unique collection of studies examines the underlying dynamics behind the decline of this rather noble principle, and suggests ways to resurrect its spirit. Written by young and established scholars discussing structures, ideas, agency, and activism, this book is a valuable plea to redeem ‘social justice’ in these bleak neoliberal conditions.” (Asef Bayat, author of “Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn” (2007), and “Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East” (2010))

“This is a rich and thoughtful collection, deftly edited and wonderfully argued. …The authors use their social and political positioning to theorize the interconnections between ‘the rentier nature of the country’ and topics such as workers collective action, the mobilizing capabilities of religion, co-operative economics, and economic liberalization. The collection is a coherent, thought-provoking, and committed work of scholarship and politics.” (Parin Dossa, author of “Afghanistan Remembers: Gendered Narrations of Violence and Culinary Practices” (2014))

“Is a richly diverse collection of essays that provides a broad and deep understanding of the economic, cultural, political, and social struggles that were transmuted and defeated in the making of the contemporary Iranian state … . The need and the potential for a new democratic Iranian left, grounded in popular movements, shine brightly in these well-researched, reflective essays.” (William K. Carroll, author of “Expose, Oppose, Propose: Alternative Policy Groups and the Struggle for Global Justice” (2016))