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 MESA 2006 Panel Summaries
Gender and Borderlands of Iran and Beyond
Submitted by Diane Tober
Panel Participants:
Panel Organizer: Diane Tober, UC Berkeley
Chair/Discussant: Janet Afary, Purdue University
Paper Presenters: Ayse Gul Altinay: Sabanci University; Mary Hegland: Santa Clara Univrsity; Diane Tober; Ashraf Zahedi: Stanford University; Shahla Haeri: Boston University
The AMEWS sponsored panel, “Gender and Borderlands of Iran and Beyond,” explored the significance of ethnic, gendered, religious and national borders and their implications for identity and survival in Iran and surrounding areas. Though geographic borders officially set apart groups with shared cultures or histories, there is also fluidity due to migration across and within these borders. This panel explored “borders” using a broad definition of the term. Though physical borders were discussed, as they affect the flow of people and definitions of identity, the panelists also focused on the borders between tradition and modernity, urban and rural, and the borders of gender, religion, ethnicity, cross cultural marriage and political activism. By drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Iran and Turkey, the panel addressed the various meanings of ‘borderlands’ in the lives of Balouchis, Kurds, Turkmen, Tajiks, Afghan refugees and Iranians.
The papers addressed a wide variety of important and timely concerns in the region. Ayse Gul Altinay in her paper, “Problematizing 'Women's Place' in the Multiple Borderzones of Gender and Ethnic Politics in Turkey,” focused on the struggles of women in the Kurdish nationalist movement in Turkey, exploring the problem of domestic, ethnic, and state violence. Mary Hegland in her paper, “From Village to Suburb: Implications for Gender and Generational Hierarchies,” discussed the changing gender and generational hierarchies from 1978 to 2003 in “Aliabad,” an Iranian village, exploring the transition from tradition to modernity, village to city. Diane Tober’s paper, “My Body is Broken Like My Country: Identity, Nation, and Repatriation among Afghan Refugees in Iran,” addressed the plight of Afghan refugees in Iran and the problematic notion of “home” in the face of undesired repatriation. Another problem facing Afghan refugees was discussed by Ashraf Zahedi in her paper, “Transnational Marriages, Gender, and Citizenship: Iranian Women and Afghan Men.” Zahedi focused on Iranian women married to Afghan men who are forced to choose between their husbands and children, and their homeland as Iran steps up Afghan repatriation efforts.
Finally, Shahla Haeri in her paper, “Religion, Politics and Women in Iran: Edging toward Democracy?” explored the changing relationship between the state, religion and women in Iran and the role of women political leaders in the democracy movement. Janet Afary’s insightful summation and discussion of the papers evoked many of the fundamental concerns in defining and re-negotiating the meanings and implications of “borders” in an incredibly diverse region. Although separations, tensions and potential for conflict in the region are near an all-time high, the papers also spoke to the possibility that somewhere in the borderlands between religious, ethnic, and national boundaries is a place of commonality.
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