This project draws on my fieldwork in different Turkish cities with substantial number of Iranian asylum seekers. These transit migrants who voluntarily pursue a permanent resettlement in a third country are composed of religious minorities and new converts including Christians, Baha’is and Zoroastrians, LGBTQ, as well as political dissidents and ethnic groups. Exploring issues including transit processes and the right of asylum; homeland, host country and international politics and policies; transnational practices; as well as membership criteria and identity development, my analytical framework builds on two theoretical/conceptual interventions that address (con)-temporariness of the diverse migrants in a globalized context. First, accounting for the religious, gender, and ethnopolitical multiplicities schematizing the Iranian migratory terrain, I problematize the analytical utility of 'asylum' and 'refugee' as homogenizing legal and political categories. While others have addressed this shortcoming, a theoretical solution has not yet been advanced. My second intervention is to approach the transitory period between seeking and receiving asylum as a phase in the formation of the global Iranian diasporas. Accordingly, drawing on the literature on transit migrants, I recast diaspora concept in order to analyze a mostly voluntary resettlement in a formative cultural continuum rather than an abrupt expulsion of a monolithic collectivity. Avoiding dichotomous models of geography/genealogy and homeland/host country, I employ a processual and imaginary concept of diaspora in order to articulate the place of the third country in the development of the diasporic subjectivity, which entails national and legal loyalties, as well as emotional ties. Exploring diasporization of marginality as processes shaped by and shaping a globalized condition for invisible Iranian counterpublics to expand into visible diasporic ones, I would also be able to analyze identity productions across cultural, geographical and political boundaries.

The beginning of the 1970s marked the fading away of the spirit of the student movements and the flourishing of militant revolutionary activism in both Iran and Turkey. In accordance with their Western Cold War alliances the Iranian and Turkish regimes followed a policy of brutal suppression of all sorts of social movements with communist tendencies. Convinced that their governments were collaborating with the United States and a comprador bourgeoisie was ruling over their country, beginning in the 1970s numerous left-leaning men and women from Turkey and Iran adopted armed struggle as the only way to get rid of those regimes and eventually establish an egalitarian, independent, and prosperous society. Inspired by the victories of guerrilla struggles in Latin America and the so-called Cultural Revolution in China, they embraced an eclectic mix of Maoist ideals and urban guerrilla warfare. In these unique conditions, the women among them had such extraordinary experiences that challenged not only traditional gender relations in their societies but also the growing sexual emancipation trajectory of the global sixties. There is a significant gap in our understanding of the history of women in social movements in Iran and Turkey due to lack of sources as well as negligence. In this respect, a comparative study of women’s activism—especially their motivations, perceptions and experiences—in revolutionary movements will be an important contribution. In this paper, I examine what sorts of challenges and opportunities women were presented with while pursuing radical leftist activism, especially in the safe houses of their revolutionary organizations. Through the oral history interviews I have conducted with former revolutionary women, I focus on their everyday lives, which revolved around organizational activities, daily chores, and responsibilities for disguising the house, analyzing the characteristics of gender roles and relations between men and women. With a comparison of Iranian and Turkish cases, this paper questions if we can talk about a common gendered experience for women in underground revolutionary movements in different countries. It will also provide us with invaluable insights regarding the consequences of global and local politics on women’s lives, experiences and ways in which gender relations were shaped in these revolutionary movements.

The Influence of Turkish Soap Operas on Middle Class Working Women of Mashhad This study presents change of women role models among middle class Iranian women, who tend to watch Turkish soap operas broadcast by satellite channels like GEM and River rather than the programs produced and broadcast by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). In line with the studies of identity change, especially those by Najmabadi and Tavakoli Taraghi on the change of Iranians through their encounter with the Europeans, as well as the investigations on women role models by Pouya , this study focuses on the changes in self and identity perceptions along with the creation of an alternative social discourse that stands in contrast to the identity engineered by dominant political and religious discourses of the Islamic Republic of Iran. To identify the revolutionary Iranian women from before, the Islamic regime introduced Fatima and Zeinab from early Islam as role models to mobilize women for the Revolution and the 1980s logistic activities. Fatima and Zeinab symbolized sacrifice and modesty, and after the War they were used to send women back to private sphere. During 1990s IRIB depicted mothers and sisters of the martyrs of the Revolution and the war , the successful entrepreneurs in the 1990s, as well as certain modest fictional characters that emphasised sacrificing modest women. This study was informed by participant observation and interviews conducted on middle class educated working women in Mashhad, and focused on the influence of vastly popular Turkish soap operas, like ‘Forbidden Love’, ‘Dila Hanim’ and ‘Fatma Gul’ on such ideas as feminine beauty, body care, fashion, freedom and carpe diem. The interviewees stated that unlike with the characters in Brazilian, Egyptian, or Korean soap operas, they often identify with the Turks, because we share similar culture, values and history. Reported by the participants, such manifestations of everyday life as shopping for Made-in-Turkey clothes rather than Iranian or Chinese brands, drinking Turkish-style coffee and tea, wearing more high-hills and Turkish-style scarves, as well as the growing number of women entering into illicit relationships and making independent decisions about their love lives are among the ones counted by the women participants in this study. The results of this ethnographical study indicate the growing alternative discourses of self-presentation and perception of identity that are inspired by Turkish characters from satellite channels, replacing IRIB role models of modesty and sacrifice.