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List of contents
1. Turning a Diasporic Tale into a Research Topic
2. Sexing Diaspora
3. Veil: Multiple Meanings, Disciplinary Power and Women’s Negotiations
4. Diasporic Narratives of Virginity
5. Learning about Sex and Sexuality
6. Romantic Love and Arranged Marriages
7. Narratives of Divorce
Conclusion
About the author
Fataneh Farahani is an Associate Professor in Ethnology at Stockholm University, Sweden.
Summary
Aiming to expand the focus on changing gender roles and construction of diasporic femininities and sexualities in migration studies, Farahani presents an original analysis of first-generation Iranian immigrant women in Sweden. This book demonstrates how migratory experiences impact sexuality and how sexuality is constitutive of migratory processes.
Additional text
This book is an important addition to the literature on gender and migration providing a much needed exploration of sexuality in the diaspora. Using a nuanced intersectional approach the book skilfully explores how Iranian women in Sweden negotiate and perform their sexuality under the constraints and contradictions they face. Through addressing issues of displacement, marginalisation, racism and sexism as well as patriarchal forms of control, it explores amongst other issues, love and marriage, veiling and unveiling practices, sexual experiences, and demands for sexual purity. The book offers a much needed exploration of how women are embedded within contradictory sets of social relations around sexuality and gender in diasporic relations. This book is highly recommended as a central contribution to the area.
Floya Anthias, Professor of Sociology, University of East London, UK, Professor of Sociology and Social Justice (Emeritus), Roehampton University, UK, Visiting Professor, City University, UK
This is an informative and passionately argued study of how women’s self-reflection in ’diasporic space’, of sex and sexuality, veil, virginity, love and marriage, challenge past/present and home/foreign dichotomies. Farahani’s analysis of sex, a vehemently protected taboo in Iranian/ Muslim culture and how it is unravelled in the process of displacement and migration is bold, perceptive and sensible.
Haideh Moghissi, Professor Emerita and Senior Scholar, Equity Studies, York University, Canada
