Foody, Kathleen, Ph.D.

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Journal of International and Global Studies Volume 6 Number 2 Article 10 4-1-2015 Hooglund, E. & Stenberg, L. (Eds.). Navigating Contemporary Iran: Challenging economic, social and political perceptions. New York and London: Routledge, 2012. Kathleen Foody Ph.D. College of Charleston, foodykm@cofc.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/jigs  Part of the Anthropology Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, and the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Foody, Kathleen Ph.D. (2015) "Hooglund, E. & Stenberg, L. (Eds.). Navigating Contemporary Iran: Challenging economic, social and political perceptions. New York and London: Routledge, 2012.," Journal of International and Global Studies: Vol. 6 : No. 2 , Article 10. Available at: https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/jigs/vol6/iss2/10 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Digital Commons@Lindenwood University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of International and Global Studies by an authorized editor of Digital Commons@Lindenwood University. For more information, please contact phuffman@lindenwood.edu. Hooglund, E. & Stenberg, L. (Eds.). Navigating Contemporary Iran: Challenging economic, social and political perceptions.  New York and London: Routledge, 2012.  Navigating Contemporary Iran: Challenging economic, social and political perceptions is a recent volume that seeks to add complexity to outsiders’ understanding of Iranian life and politics. The essays are largely devoted to the post-revolution period, and many emphasize the period after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first election. Editors Eric Hoogland and Leif Stenberg suggest that “as a consequence of 30 years of economic and social changes, the reality, or ‘essence,’ of contemporary Iran is more complex and nuanced than are the typical images of the country portrayed in international media” (p. 3). Aside from the two final essays, however, the contributions in this volume do not deal directly with international media as such. Instead, they take a more narrow focus and provide detailed studies of Iranian debates surrounding gender, economy, politics, and social life. While the essays in Navigating Contemporary Iran are of uneven quality, many are based on original interviews and understudied documents from within the Iranian system.  The book is divided into five sections: economics; gender; “social life” (including nationalism, ethnicity, and drug policies); internal politics; and international relations. The two articles in the section on economics both focus on the place of the economy in state ideology and attempts at economic liberalization. The first, by Evaleila Pesaran, documents the failures of the Islamic Republic’s economic plan due to the “highly politicized nature of the country’s economic system” (p. 16). The second, by Mohammad Majloo, traces transformations in the moral economy from the revolution through Ahmadinejad’s government. Three essays address women’s political and social lives in Iran. Roskana Bahramitash’s essay ties women’s participation in Iranian political debate to thirty years of transformations in education, health, family, culture, and employment (p. 49). Fatemeh Sadeghi’s essay focuses on the “double agency” of women who support the Iranian Republic or are otherwise religiously conservative. For Sadeghi, double agency provides a framework outside that of “resistance” and highlights the ways in which the “marginalized have to do contradictory tasks at the same time” and, in performing tasks that both support and subvert their marginalizing, “question the socio-politically constructed duality of public versus private on which both the gender ideology of the Islamic state and social norms rely” (p. 60). Fatemeh Haghighatjoo examines the One Million Signatures Campaign, which began in 2006 to collect signatures demanding the amendment of laws discriminating against women. She argues that while the campaign did not have direct legal consequences, it raised awareness among young Iranians about legal discrimination against women (p. 93). The third section of Navigating Contemporary Iran focuses on social inclusion and exclusion. Rouzbeh Parsi compares Iranian political-philosophical debate in the 1920s to that of the post-revolution period.  He draws on Reinhart Koselleck to argue that while key elements of debate over identity, modernity, and gender in contemporary, post-revolution Iran mirror debates of the 1920s, post-revolutionary debates have been further transformed by the changing landscape of Iranian social and political life (p. 100). One key element of this transformation for Parsi is the contemporary reality of “mass politics,” which, “in the 1920s … was merely a distant possibility” (p. 100). Azadeh Kian examines the “impact of post-revolutionary modernization policies” on Baluchi women. She argues that Baluchis are “increasingly…influenced by the dominant culture model” of Iranian identity, yet “religious and linguistic difference” remain significant for Baluchi identity, and, she says, despite many shifts, “patriarchal traditions” remain Journal of International and Global Studies Volume 6, Number 2  81  strong (p. 137). Finally, Jeanne Bjerre Christensen asks how and why government policies changed under Muhammad Khatami’s presidency from classifying drug users as criminals to patients (p. 138). She argues that “the fact that many of the ‘sacred’ social categories of the revolution – particularly [that of] war veterans – also became addicts…forced the state to reclassify the categories of vulnerable people, and to redefine drug treatment as an ‘Islamic duty’” (p. 138).   Most essays in this volume address the political in some sense. The fourth section, on politics, focuses specifically on the 2009 election and the protests that followed. Jaleh Taheri’s essay, “The post-election protests: reflections from a country in transition,” is indeed a series of reflections based on the author’s stay in Iran following the June 2009 presidential elections and seems geared toward the Iranian diaspora. Farhad Khosrokhavar focuses on the “democratic imaginary” that gave rise to the Green Movement. He argues that by “allowing people to pour into the streets to support their candidates, the government had concluded an implicit moral contract with the citizens…. During those crucial months, in the minds of Iranian citizens, one can detect the anthropological ingredients of … [the social contract] in situ, that is, in action, through concrete social action, and not just as a theoretical premise for an intellectual elaboration” (p. 173). The question of international perception, raised in the volume’s introduction, organizes the last section of essays. Elaheh Rostami-Povey focuses on Iran’s influence in the region and bases her work on interviews conducted with “activists and academics” from 2007-2009 (p. 187). She suggests that Iran’s popularity in Lebanon, Egypt, and Palestine hinges on the state’s support for Palestine and opposition to U.S. policies, despite widespread condemnation of Iran in the “mainstream media” in these countries. The Green Movement, interestingly, poses a problem for this support, as it both undermines the legitimacy of the Iranian government and is largely supported by the Israeli state, the United States, and the Arab media. Eric Hoogland’s concluding chapter directly addresses three widely publicized critiques of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government, namely, his supposed threat to “wipe Israel off the map,” his denial of the Holocaust, and his nuclear program. Much of this information will not be new to those familiar with Iranian studies, but Hoogland does provide detailed contextualization of Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric, its relation to previous administrations, and its significant mistranslations in international media.  The strength of this volume is its inclusion of perspectives from inside Iran, whether based on interviews, personal reflections, or studied observation. Most essays avoid complicated theorization, a fact that will make these readings accessible to a wide variety of undergraduate readers. These essays may also be helpful for scholars outside of Iranian studies who seek to add comparative data to undergraduate courses.    Kathleen Foody PhD College of Charleston foodykm@cofc.edu   

Hooglund, E. & Stenberg, L. (Eds.). Navigating Contemporary Iran: Challenging economic, social and political perceptions. New York and London: Routledge, 2012.

https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1247&context=jigs

Hooglund, E. & Stenberg, L. (Eds.). Navigating Contemporary Iran: Challenging economic, social and political perceptions. New York and London: Routledge, 2012.

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