Low-Income Islamist Women and Social Economy in Iran

This book presents an innovative analysis of the solidarity/social economy among low-income religious women in Iran. For years, the role of low-income women in community care and poverty reduction has been underestimated and under-researched in the broader academic community, due to the “invisible” nature of these informal and predominantly religious networks. As economic hardship in Iran increases, women in the community have mobilized to bring assistance to those struggling to make ends meet. The culmination of years of fieldwork in different parts of the country, this book sheds light on how religious women form the backbone of Iran’s social safety net as the welfare state fails and social protection policies dwindle. By exploring these objectives, this book hopes to not document informal social safety net dominated entirely by women but also to close some of the perceptual gaps that may exists between them and the outsiders (those who live outside of Iran and are unfamiliar with the currents of event). This book hopes to capture the essence of the solidarity economy among low-income women, particularly religious women, in Iran in an attempt to provide policy maker to enhance and support it. For example, there are documentations of how grass root organizations operating in low income neighborhoods effectively transfer aid to those in need specially in this case those who became victim of reduction of the welfare state. Interestingly, ways in which low income religious women are engaged in social safety nets creates a unique space that brings together women from different socio-economic backgrounds in their effort to deal with poverty and in parallel with formal/state owned or male dominated informal ones such as the mosques.