Low-Income Islamic Women, Poverty and the Solidarity Economy in Iran

Abstract

This article is based on fieldwork research among Islamic women of low and lower middle-income households and seeks to explore their role in the solidarity/social economy, which is neither part of the government nor the private sector and primarily is rooted in the community. It documents the female-dominated, mainly informal solidarity economy functioning parallel to official and semi-formal public and private ways that Iran deals with poverty. The research concentrates exclusively on women who are practicing Muslims, as the bulk of the data I gathered was from low and lower middle-income neighborhoods where religion is a part of daily lives and where there are more incidents of economic need. The solidarity economy among the low income demonstrated that the role of religious women is important. Moreover, because of an overall decline in the role of the state, especially the development (welfare) state globally but more specifically in this case Iran, as well as the economic crisis due to international sanctions, the solidarity economy is a vehicle for poverty relief. Self-identified Muslim women's roles in the solidarity economy tend to remain by and large invisible and undocumented and therefore its value overlooked. Yet, as literature on gender and development indicates, women's role in distributing resources is geared toward their families and communities and therefore understanding how their networks operate can provide policy insight into how poverty can be addressed through community and grass roots organizations, some of which operate in the form of self-help, while others mediate between the public and the private sector.

Keywords::

• Gender and development
• Islam and gender
• Iran
• Islamic women
• poverty relief
• religious charity
• social networks
• solidarity economy
• women and social justice
• Zahedan

Notes

¹ See B. Lévesque & M. Mendel (2005) Approaches, Practices and a Proposal for a New Community-University Alliance (CURA), The Journal of Rural Cooperation, 33(1), pp. 21–45; see also F. Moulaert & O. Ailenei (2005) Economy, Third Sector and Solidarity Relations: A Conceptual Synthesis from History to Present, Urban Studies, 42(11), pp. 2037–2053.

² See D. Demoustier & D. Rousselière (2006) Social Economy as Social Science and Social Practice: Historical perspectives on France. Available at: http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00106993, accessed July 7, 2014.

³ See F. Moulaert & O. Ailenei, Social Economy, Third Sector and Solidarity Relations, pp. 2037–2053.

⁴ For examples, see further M. Poya (1991) Women, work and Islamism: Ideology and resistance in Iran (London: Zed Books); P. Paidar (1995) Women and the political process in twentieth-century Iran (Cambridge University Press); A. Kian (1995) Gendered Occupation and Women's Status in Post-revolutionary Iran, Middle Eastern Studies, 31(3), pp. 407–421; R. Bahramitash (2007), Female Employment and Globalization During Iran's Reform Era (1997–2005), Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 3(2), pp. 86–109.

⁵ See R. Bahramitash (2007) Female Employment; and E. Haghighat-Sordellini (2011) Iran within a regional context: Socio-demographic transformations and effects on women's social status, in: R. Bahramitash & E. Hooglund (eds) Gender in Contemporary Iran: Pushing the Boundaries, pp. 162–189 (London: Routledge).

⁶ H. Hoodfar (2006) Volunteer health workers in Iran as social activists: Can ‘governmental non-governmental organizations’ be agents of democratization? Available at: http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org/fileadmin/docdb/pdf/2006/1998_wluml.pdf, accessed October 2013.

⁷ See S. Mahmood (2005) Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

⁸ See L. Deeb (2006) An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi'i Lebanon (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

⁹ See A. Kian (2007) Women and Politics in Post-Islamist Iran: The Gender Conscious Drive to Change, The British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 24(1), pp. 75–96.

¹⁰ See S. Golkar (2012) Paramilitarization of the Economy: The Case of Iran's Basij Militia, Armed Forces & Society, 38(4), pp. 625–648.

¹¹ F. Adelkhah (1998) Being Modern in Iran (New York: Columbia University Press). Javanmardy is difficult to translate but it refers to a chivalrous person who stands up for the rights of those on the margin, and is a term commonly used among more traditional Iranians.

¹² At their request, I have not included the names of some interviewees.

¹³ Author interview, Zahedan, winter 2013.

¹⁴ Author interview, Tehran, Winter 2013.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ For a detailed discussion of RSCAs, see R. Bahramitash (2013) Gender, Micro Entrepreneurship and the Informal Sector in Iran (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).

¹⁸ Muharram is the month in the Islamic lunar calendar when Hossein Ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, was killed in a battle with soldiers loyal to the Second Umayyad Caliph Yazid.

¹⁹ Sadagheh cannot be given to descendants of the Prophet Mohammad.

²⁰ Author interview, Tehran, Autumn 2011.

²¹ Author interview, Tehran, Autumn 2012.

²² The covered bazaar is located in the heart of Old Tehran, Autumn, 2011, which now is regarded as a low-income neighbourhood. Most bazaar merchants do not live there but in higher income neighborhoods. The bazaar has its own community networks, mainly among men. See further A. Keshavarzian (2007) Bazaar and State in Iran: Politics of the Tehran Marketplace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

²³ Author interview, Tehran, Autumn 2012.

²⁴ Author interview, Shahr-e Ray, Autumn 2012.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Author interview, Autumn 2012.

²⁷ Author interview, Tehran, Winter 2013.

²⁸ Ibid.

²⁹ Author interview, Tehran, Winter 2013.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Author interview, Isfahan, Winter 2013.

³² Author interview, Shiraz, Winter 2013.

³³ Ibid.

³⁴ Author interview, Tehran, Autumn 2012.

³⁵ See R. Bahramitash (2011) Female-Headed Households in Iran, in: R. Bahramitash & H. Salehi Esfahani (eds) Veiled Employment: Islamism and the Political Economy of Women's Employment in Iran, pp. 191–225 (Syracuse: University of Syracuse).

³⁶ P. Utting (2013) Social and Solidarity Economy: A Pathway to Socially Sustainable Development? Available at: http://www.unrisd.org/unrisd/website/newsview.nsf/%28httpNews%29/AB920B156339500AC1257B5C002C1E96?OpenDocument&utm_campaign = ebulletin_23_5_2013&utm_medium = email_html&utm_source = en&utm_content = content_link, accessed July 2014.