Bodies in Revolt, Challenging the State in Iran

Abstract

The protests that erupted across Iran in 2022 after the death of a woman arrested for noncompliance with a headscarf requirement were not only about religious dress codes. They were a culmination of years of growing discontent over broader questions involving the place of women in the Islamic Republic and other grievances about the reach of an overbearing state and perceived social and political injustices. The erosion of civil society has made it difficult to sustain the protests’ momentum, as the state moves to co-opt businesses and the public into enforcing its decrees, but the uprising is part of a longer-term, nonlinear process of dissent-driven change in Iran.