Fataneh Farahani

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Diasporic Narratives of Sexuality

This thesis is a timely contribution to ethnological analysis of sexuality among Iranian women. Considering sexuality as gendered and socioculturally constructed, Fataneh Farahani examines the impact of Iranian Islamic discourses and contemporary socialization, as well as diasporic experiences, on women's narrations of sexuality. With sexuality as the main subject of analysis, the writer focuses on issues involving gender, otherness, agency, and marginality. Being alert to different (sometimes contradictory) discourses, Fataneh Farahani studies the tension that develops between the process of (self)disciplining women's bodies and the coping tactics that women employ. The writer shows how moral values regarding appropriate sexual behavior undergo various and sometimes contradictory transformations. The interviewees report being torn between two 'seemingly' different cultures, each constructed discourses filled with stereotypes of socalled natives and outsiders. The writer shows that, in their everyday lives amidst a variety of racist and sexist stereotypes, women are not really 'torn between two cultures.' Rather, they live a hybrid experience of 'Swedishness' and 'Iranianess' along with other characteristics. At issue is a complexity within the culture(s) in which they live. Fataneh Farahani is an ethnologist and teaches at the Department of Ethnology, History of Religion & Gender Studies at Stockholm University and School of Gender, Culture & History at Sodertorns University Collage.