Embodying Difference: Iranian Women’s Working Life Experiences in Norway

ABSTRACT

With reference to postcolonial intersectional scholarship, this article examines working life narratives of Iranian immigrant women before and after migration to Norway in relation to questions of equality along gender and racial lines. This interview-based study asks, ‘How do Iranian immigrant women who have resettled in Norway narrate their work experiences in their home and host countries, and how does this inform us about processes of othering and discrimination in both contexts?’ To what extent these othering processes can be understood in terms of the intersectional dimensions of gender and race. The study shows that although the move from a state considered repressive to one considered a model of gender equality entails positive experiences at work along gendered lines, these positive experiences are often encountered by the processes of racial and ethnic sorting, thus leading to distress and alienation. Accordingly, the interviews show a nuanced picture of working life in both countries, with both positive and negative stories of work in each context. Overall, the paper addresses a need to move beyond reductionist interpretations of migration that portrays immigration to the West as an unproblematic journey towards a better life in the accounts of immigrants coming from the East.

KEYWORDS:

• Iranian immigrant women
• Norway
• work organizations
• postcolonial intersectionality
• embodiment
• gender
• racialization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fatemeh Fathzadeh

Fatemeh Fathzadeh is an Iranian scholar based at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture (KULT), Center for Gender Studies (SKF). Her Doctoral project focuses mainly on the Iranian immigrant women’s negotiations of subjectivity in the contexts of Iran and Norway. The article submitted to NORA is part of this wider project. The author’s area of study includes feminist theory, migration, intersectionality and postcolonial studies. She has published articles in Journal of Gender Studies and Women's Studies International Forum.