The female body as the bearer of national identity in Iran: a critical discourse analysis of the representation of women's bodies in official online outlets

Abstract

The female body has been in the foreground of nation-building in Iran especially since the 1930s projects of modernization, when unveiling women and adaptation to Western clothing became a crucial factor of bolstering modern Iranian national identity as opposed to a religion-based national identity. After the 1979 Revolution, the Islamic dress code became compulsory and female imagery depicting modesty and piety became a source of national identity. Although the representation of women's bodies in nationalist discourses has been subject of different studies, women's representation in official online outlets is still understudied. This article discusses how women's bodily appearance and representation in official online outlets feed into the nationalist discourses in Iran. Three key cases between 2014 and 2017 are addressed: (i) actress Leila Hatami kissing a man at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival; (ii) the public debate on women's entrance to sports stadiums in 2014–2015; (iii) the public revelation of actress Taraneh Alidoosti's tattooed forearm in 2016. Data were collected from multiple Iranian official online platforms and a critical discourse analysis was undertaken to analyse different forms of discursive articulation regarding women's bodies and national identity. Drawing on feminist literature inspired by the Foucauldian concept of biopolitics, the article discusses the ways in which women's bodies are discursively constructed to illustrate a uniform Islamic nationalistic discourse.

Keywords:

• Biopolitics
• critical discourse analysis
• gender politics
• Iranian nationalism
• online media

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Research Foundation Flanders (FWO).

Notes on contributors

Ladan Rahbari

Ladan Rahbari is a feminist social anthropologist. She has a PhD in sociology and a Master's degree in Anthropology. She currently conducts a doctoral research project in Gender and Diversity. The joint project is funded by FWO and is conducted in Ghent University and Vrije Universiteit Brussel University and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Rahbari currently lectures in courses of gender and sexuality in UGent and VUB. She has teaching and research experiences in social sciences, arts and gender studies programs in several universities. Her research interests include gender politics, sexuality, space, body, harmful cultural practices and feminist theory.

Chia Longman

Chia Longman is Associate Professor in Gender Studies at the Dept. of Languages and Cultures at Ghent University, Belgium. She directs the Centre for Research on Culture and Gender and is Programme Director of the Inter University Master Programme in Gender and Diversity. Her research interests and publications lie in the field of the anthropology of gender, religion, spirituality and kinship.

Gily Coene

Gily Coene is Associate Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and is affiliated to the Department of Philosophy and Ethics and the Department of Political Sciences. She is also Director of RHEA, Research Centre on Gender, Diversity and Intersectionality. Her research interests focus on gender equality, diversity and human rights and includes issues of sexual and reproductive rights, harmful cultural practices, undocumented migration and gender-based violence.