Power and resistance: Iranian day-laborers’ lived experience of power relations in the workplace

ABSTRACT

This article discusses power in four dimensions and delves into the modes of encountering power by the subaltern. We delved into the lived experience of 25 male day laborers in the construction section in the city of Tehran, Iran, using narrative interviews that are analyzed from the perspective of hermeneutical phenomenology. The findings suggest that the concept of resistance cannot explain the encountering of power and that a broader conceptual network including receptiveness, powerlessness, as well as resistance, must be considered. The emergence of each of these modes depends on the actor’s situation and their interpretation of the situation.

KEYWORDS:

• Subaltern
• resistance
• powerlessness
• dimensions of power
• Iran

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. At the time of the interview each US dollar was exchanged for around 200,000 rials, making it 5 dollars of wage, which was much lower than the minimum salary of wage earners.

2. The translation of all interview extracts is by the authors.

3. These workers are not powerful enough to stand up to bullying or disrespect for reasons mentioned above. As we will show below, these very same workers do show resistance under certain circumstances: when they are not paid. All this may boil down to the fact that their identity belongs to those of ‘fragmented actors’. Sporadic resistance we may observe is not therefore in contradiction.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mohammad Yazdaninasab

Mohammad Yazdaninasab is assistant professor in Sociology at Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran. His research focuses on historical sociology, power and the subaltern. His Historical Sociology of Elites of Modern Iran, Turkey, and Japan (2019) published in Persian discusses elites from the standpoint of power. He has also published on the subaltern. His latest publication is a compilation of papers concerning narratives from the subaltern life in Iran.

Mir Mohammad Khademnabi

Mir Mohammad Khademnabi is assistant professor in Translation Studies at the University of Maragheh, Maragheh, Iran. His research focuses on the intersection of society, history, and translation, among others. He has also co-translated Causality and Causal Modeling in Social Sciences into Persian.