Deans Lecture Series_2024

depleted households:Domesticating economic Sanctions

Dr Nazanin shahrokni associate professor of international studies simon fraser university nazanin_shahrokni@sfu.ca

Iran Under Sanctions

Source: https://www.rethinkingiran.com/iran-under-sanctions

Bringing sanctions studies into dialogue with austerity studies through a feminist lens

Methods

This project draws on 10 unstructured and 52 semi-structured interviews with educated women from middle-class households in Tehran, who were invited to reflect on the ways their lives adjusted between 2015-2021. Both sets of interviews, incorporated opportunities for follow ups to further explore information provided by the interviewees or allow them to elaborate where necessary.

Depleted households

Physical/Mental Fatigue

Time poverty

Triple Labor

Triple burden & time poverty deplete energies & exhausts bodies. Due to Austerity measures implemented by the State, resources for replenishment have been reduced or privatized.

Time is a resource that is unevenly distributed

- home as a site of production & reproduction- increase unpaid work - increase care work

This scarcity of discretionary time

The gender gap no one's talking about

“Once I went to buy pickles, I noticed that for 15 small pickled cucumbers I had to pay 25,000 tomans. I bought three kilos of cucumber instead, made the pickles myself and managed to give a few jars to my friends and relatives as well. It made me proud, because I saved a lot of money. I even joked with my husband that, if people really like my pickles, maybe I can start a home business, turning my kitchen into a production line.”

Narges, 36 year old, "housewife"

"Restaurants have become very pricey. So to entertain the kids, sometimes, I pretend to be Colonel Sanders and make fried chicken for the family!"

Negar, 44 year old, teacher

THANK YOU