Sexuality and the Politics of Un-truth: Revisiting the Foucauldian Approach in Studying sexuality in Iran

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED

CANCELLED

Dr Mehran Rezaei

Sexuality studies in field of Iran has influenced almost always by social constructivism especially in terms of Foucauldian methodology. Given that this theory based on western history and its particular politics of truth, as it explain by Foucault, the significant question is that how could we apply this theoretical framework, provided  the similar politics of truth is not applicable in the context of Iran. A simple glance at religious doctrines and Iranian sexual relations shows that there is no the same dealing with sexuality and truth in Iran, if anything there has been an opposite politics in talking about body and desire. So far as truth-telling has a leading role in constructing modern sexuality in European countries, NOT talking publically about body and desire has been a common maxim encouraged strongly by Islamic moral codes, juridical system, sexual language, social relations, and the official political system in Iran.

But this unwillingness to produce a knowledge about truth of sex, which we call here a politics of un-truth, restricted to new forms of visibility. There is some sources to incite to visibility, thanks to modernisation processes, both from civil and political society in different ways. Islamic Republic is following a biopolitics which demands new forms of visibility, when it comes to deploy modern technology to manage population growth. At the same time the civil society, in turn, resists against mandatory invisibility. Both of them restricted to the politics of untruth and are doing simultaneously a complicated play within it. I will study this complexity by focusing on the case of "Stealthy Freedom of Women in Iran"; campaign/platform which incites women to show their  stealthily practice of visibility.

The hybrid sexual politics in Iran constructed between such 'will' to invisibility and visibility; the quality which is usually ignored in sexuality studies in Iran or not enough explained in regard to the local politics of truth. After clarifying the characteristic of hybrid sexual politics in Iran I apply it as a critical lens to review the current related literature. In Concluding remarks I will also look at my project (Politics of Sexuality in Post-Revolutionary Iran) which this study is a first part and a theoretical basis for it.

Biography:

My name is Mehran Rezaei. My Ph.D was in Philosophy at Shahid Beheshti University in Iran. My research studies focused more on Intellectual studies in field of Iran. I was involved in sexuality rights movement in Iran since 2006. My articles in Persian has been released in Radio Zamaneh website and Sexuality Studies Group website which I have contributed to found it since 2011. I have awarded IIE (International Institute for Education) in 2013. Since April 2014 I am working on a project for Politics of Sexuality in Post-Revolutionary Iran as a visiting researcher in SOAS for one year.

Organiser: Dr Gina Heathcote

Contact email: gh21@soas.ac.uk

Contact Tel: 020 7898 4367