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Azerbaijani Women in Iran

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Azerbaijani Women in Iran AZERBAIJANI WOMEN IN IRAN: OPPRESSION, EMPOWERMENT, AGENCY _______________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of San Diego State University _______________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Women’s Studies _______________ by Sevil Suleymani Summer 2018 iii Copyright © 2018 by Sevil Suleymani All Rights Reserved iv DEDICATION To the memory of my grandmother, the first feminist in my life. To women of my Homeland whom I witnessed their suffering, resistance, resilience, empowerment and agency. Qızıldan olsa da qəfəsim, azadlığa var həvəsim. v ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS Azerbaijani Women in Iran: Oppression, Empowerment, Agency by Sevil Suleymani Master of Arts in Women’s Studies San Diego State University, 2018 Azerbaijani women in Iran have been invisible citizens because of their ethnicity and gender. They have faced racism and sexism from Persian women and men, as well as sexism within their own community. Azerbaijani women faced racism, colonialism, and sexism from their culture and from the dominant Persian system, which is perpetuated by cultural and linguistic differences. With all their experiences, Azerbaijani women never received enough attention in Iranian women’s movement; additionally, challenges in the Azerbaijani community, as a semi-colonized community, have faced Azerbaijani local activists with various obstacles. In this research through using Azerbaijani women’s experiences, I explore how feminist movements cannot divorce themselves from the hegemonic socio-political system they operate within, as observed in the case of Iran. Thus, the Iranian mainstream feminist movement reflects the power hierarchies in Iran and is complicit in marginalizing minority groups and women. By focusing on how transnational women’s movements are unable to capture fully the voices of local communities and therefore further that marginalization, I explore the dilemma of identity in Azerbaijani Turk as semi-colonized community has also carried over to feminist debates, while these debates have faced Azerbaijani local activists with challenge to create a bridge to their local community as well as global world. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................................v LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................... viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... ix INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................................1 1 AZERBAIJAN’S DEMOGRAPHIC AND GEOGRAPHICAL IDENTITY................4 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ..............................................................................................7 Postcolonial and Transnational Feminism ...............................................................7 Feminism: A Local Idea or ‘Westernized’ Idea? .....................................................8 Epistemology of Knowledge ....................................................................................9 ‘Agency and Liberatory Subject’ ...........................................................................11 Nationalism and Feminism ....................................................................................11 Local Feminist Movements....................................................................................12 Women’s Movements in Iran.................................................................................13 Conclusion .............................................................................................................17 3 METHODOLOGY AND METHOD ...........................................................................19 Standpoint Theory ..................................................................................................19 Interviews ...............................................................................................................21 Opportunities and Limitations ...............................................................................22 4 NEGOTIATING FEMINISM BY AZERBAIJANI ACTIVISTS ...............................28 5 A QUEST FOR IDENTITY AMONG AZERBAIJANIS ...........................................33 Azeri or Turk? ........................................................................................................34 Nationalism in Iran ................................................................................................37 Women’s Movement in South Azerbaijan .............................................................40 6 MULTIPLE MARGINS: GENDER, RACE/ETHNICITY, AND CLASS .................46 Rahele Zamani .......................................................................................................46 vii Rahele is the “Only One…” ...................................................................................50 The Double Oppression of Azerbaijani Turk Women ...........................................52 Literature, Women and Honor ...............................................................................55 Perceptions and Representations of Ethnic Minorities within Iran .......................59 Conclusion .............................................................................................................61 7 AZERBAIJANI WOMEN’S DILEMMA IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ...........................62 Globalization and Global Feminism ......................................................................62 Ethnic Women in Iranian Women’s Movement ....................................................64 Representation of the Iranian Women’s Movement in the West ...........................69 What a Local Feminist Says… ..............................................................................72 Conclusion .............................................................................................................75 8 AGENCY AND VISIBILITY OF WOMEN IN AZERBAIJANI MOVEMENTS IN IRAN ............................................................................................77 Introduction ............................................................................................................77 The Way I Came across Azerbaijani Movements…..............................................77 Azerbaijani Movements .........................................................................................84 Empowerment and Agency ....................................................................................89 Empowerment among Azerbaijani Women ...........................................................90 Conclusion .............................................................................................................93 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................95 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................99 viii LIST OF FIGURES PAGE Figure 1. South Azerbaijan, Iran. Created by Sevil Suleymani. ................................................6 ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Professor Huma Ahmed- Ghosh. She spent hours reading, editing, and criticizing my writings with great care and gave me valuable feedback from the early stages of writing proposals to the final stages. She has always been incredibly accessible and excited about the project. Her commitment to excellence in research and writing has always inspired me. She will always remain a role model for me in the academia. I am very thankful to Professor Amira Jarmakani, who provided me insightful critiques, particularly in the proposal and grant-writing stages. I am grateful to Professor Khaleel Mohammed, who knew me from first day of my college and saw my academic journey throughout these years. I would like to thank Doreen Mattingly for also acting as a mentor and confidant to me since my undergraduate and making me believe that I can be a scholar. I am very thankful for my queer family, Sheema Khaweer, Layla Mahmoud-Britton, Sav Schlauderaff, and Krizia Puig. Thanks for being there anytime I needed you, you were my biggest support. I also want to thank to my friends Umud, Mehdi, and Yadulla for their unconditional love and support and connecting me to activists for interviews. This thesis project had many personal meaning for me in discovering my community and reconnecting with them. Thank you to everyone who believed in me and supported me in accomplishing this project. 1 INTRODUCTION Growing up in Iran, I realized how Turks1 are frequent objects of ridicule in Iranian society because of their accents in Farsi and stereotypes of being simple-minded. Surprisingly, many Azerbaijani Turks even tolerate jokes directed towards Turks in Iranian society. As a woman I have personally faced racism on a daily basis from many Persian people and even from some Turks as a consequence of assimilation within Iran. I witnessed how women from different ethnicities around me faced racism as well as the added hardships of being victims of domestic violence, different forms of abuse, and physical and sexual assaults. Thus, not only did I have to fight against racism and sexism in Iranian society, but I also had to stand up against overbearing patriarchal norms and traditions because of
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