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Acknowledgments
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xiii Acknowledgments This project started in 2004, when I (Bahramitash) went back to Iran after thirteen years. The trip was a shocking experience as I found myself extremely uninformed about changes that had occurred during my absence. I had lived in Iran all my life, as a student in the early 1980s and then as a teacher at university in the late 1980s until my departure to Canada in 1991. Iran had undergone a great deal of transformation and appeared as an extremely dynamic country. As someone whose research area has been poverty in general and women in particular, I had been engaged in fieldwork in Southeast Asia. Comparing the literature on Southeast Asia with that on the Middle East in general and on Iran in particular, I realized that a great deal of what happens in Iran has remained unnoticed. This lack of attention may be partly because many scholars who write are either unable to travel to Iran or do not stay an extended period of time, and not many Iran-based scholars publish their work in English . I became convinced that it was extremely important to carry out fieldwork in order to reflect some of the changes that had occurred in the postrevolutionary era, particularly changes of the reform era. I first attempted to approach Iranian scholars and read their work. Next, I went through library archives, conducted interviews, attended conferences (and there were many conferences being held throughout the country), and traveled extensively. I found a major gap between the literature in English and what has happened in Iran, particularly with regard to women’s work. While working on this project I delivered a lecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I met Hadi Salehi xiv • Acknowledgments Esfahani. We exchanged notes, shared our research, and decided to work together. We approached other academics who have worked in Iran, and Fatemeh Moghadam and Zahra Karimi joined us. For a comparative study, we asked Jennifer Olmsted. Here we should mention that Zohreh Niknia was from the start of the project very supportive and involved, for which we are very thankful. Another person very important to this project is Eric Hooglund. Hooglund has been an extremely influential scholar. He from time to time read drafts of several of these chapters and has been one of the strongest critics of the work but, at the same time, he has been one of my greatest sources of information and inspiration. Other scholars helped this project in various capacities, and we wish to thank specific Iranian scholars such as Azam Ravad Rad, Maryam Afshary, Fazileh Khani, Nahid Motiei, Susan Bastani, Mohseni Tabrizi, Sam Aram, Nahid Farast, Hossien Nouri, and Maryam Norouzi. They shared their research with us, and we would have liked to have been able to include their work in this book, but we were unable to incorporate them in this particular volume. I (Bahramitash) wish to thank them all and hope to incorporate their work in a different anthology. Here in Canada and the United States, the book has benefited from the support of a number of scholars. Lillian Robinson, the principal of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University Women’s Study Program’s intellectual and institutional support, was pivotal during the early stages of the book. She was a true scholar as well as a dear friend who was a great resource person. The book has benefited from the support of Dr. Patrice Brodeur, the chair of Islam, Pluralism, and Globalization at the University of Montreal, whose expertise has been vital and highly critical. Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, has provided essential scholarly reinforcement for this book. Also many thanks to Nadereh Chamlou and the Persinate Gender Network for bringing together academics who work on issues related to gender and work in Iran. [44.204.24.82] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:06 GMT) Acknowledgments • xv There have been other scholars whose help has been crucial. We wish to thank Parvin Alizadeh and Fatemeh Moghadam, who read and commented on our work. We wish to thank Jennifer Olmsted for writing a chapter at such short notice as well as for reading and providing excellent comments. Other academics have supported this project by reading parts of the work and providing constructive criticism , among them Elaheh Rostami Povey, Minoo Moallem, and Valentine Moghadam. Others have been important for the exchange of ideas, and here we...