Notes
Notes Introduction 1. In the eighteenth century, Jeremy Bentham devised a new structure for prisons, which would allow guards to watch prisoners continuously. From a tower in the center of a ring of cells, one or two guards could constantly monitor those inside the cells. This also meant that those in the cells were always aware of being watched by those in the tower. Bentham believed that the prospect of being constantly under scrutiny would discourage bad behavior. His vision, the Panopticon, would fundamentally alter the function and efficiency of prisons and similar institutions and eventually became a metaphor for society . 2. What Scott calls the hidden resistance of “foot dragging, dissimulation, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage, and so forth” (1985: 29), de Certeau terms the practice of la perruque, the misuse of work time for personal activity (1984: 25–26). For a critical reading of Scott, see Gutmann (1993). 3. This criticism can be made of de Certeau’s own theories of “everyday life resistance,” as they contain no detailed ethnography of how people actually carry out resistance. This has partly caused the gender blindness in his theories (de Certeau 1984). In post-Revolutionary Iran, a gender perspective may be particularly pertinent, as women have been especially prominent in challenging the authorities through individual acts of resistance (see Afkhami and Friedle 1994; Moghissi 1993; Esfandiari 1997; Shahidian 2002). 4. For me, reading Foucault’s analysis of power always evokes post-Revolutionary Iran. Not surprisingly, he has become very popular in Iran since the late 1990s. Most of his works are translated into Persian and top the best-seller list. 5. For a detailed history of the Birmingham School see Lave et al. (1992). 6. Iran’s Youth Employment Organization indicates 60 percent in 2003 (IRNA [Islamic Republic News Agency], April 26, 2003) and the Statistical Center of Iran indicates 50 percent in 1996. 7. Iran Financial News, January 19, 2002. 8. Eghtesad-e Iran (Iran Economics) 27 (2001). 9. Newsletter of Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Mines 1 (March 2000). 10. Economic Intelligence Unit (2002), 23. 11. Peyk-e Sanjesh (Informative Periodical of the Country’s Evaluation & Training Organization) 6 (25) (2001). 12. For instance, 8,000 physicians in 2002 were jobless; see Gofteman 3 (3) (Winter 2002): 202–7. 13. Norouz, October 24, 2001, www.undcp.org/iran, accessed December 2006. 14. Jaam-e Jam 3 (603) (June 16, 2002). 15. Hamshari, 25 Aban 1379/2000. 16. Reform and Rectification; Social, Cultural & Training 1 (8) (Nov. 2002): 46–47. 17. World Population Data Sheet 2006, www.prb.org, accessed December 2006. 18. A disproportionate emphasis on nomadism at the expense of other domains of society is not specific to Iran alone. The anthropology of the whole Middle East suffers from such a shortcoming (see Eickelman 1989: 75). The romantic attraction of nomads was perhaps an effect of Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life, a film made by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schodsack in 1925. The film documented the heroic migration of 50,000 Bakhtiari nomads over the hazardous Zagros Mountains in search of grass for their herds. Grass caused a great sensation in the West and attracted a large number of Western as well as Iranian anthropologists to explore nomadic groups throughout the country, particularly around the Zagros Mountains. In Iran anthropology (mardomshenasi) is still taken as synonymous with nomadic studies. In April 1997 I visited the anthropological section of the Department of Social Sciences at Tehran University , to seek advice about planning fieldwork in the bazaar of Tehran (the field I was first interested in). I was advised to do research in Sweden (where I lived). When I asked them to be more specific in their interests within the anthropology of Sweden, they answered, “the Lapps, the Swedish nomads.” Brian Street (1990: 247) had a similar experience during his fieldwork in Iran. He was frequently asked by anthropologists which tribe he was studying, not whether he was studying “tribes.” There are several exceptions, such as Loeb (1977) on the Jewish minority in Shiraz; Beeman (1986) on power in the Persian language; Good (1977) and Good et al. (1985) on medical anthropology; Fischer (1980), Fischer and Abedi (1990), Loeffler (1988), and Thaiss (1973) on Islam as a social institution; Rotblad (1972) on the bazaar; Haeri (1989) on the institution and practice of temporary marriage, mut’a, among poor women in the religious cities of Qom and Mashhad; Mir-Hosseini (1993) on Islamic law...
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