Paper Short Abstract:

The forms of governmentality under the Islamic Republic (through regimes of affects, values, political topographies of the public space) sheds light on the 2022 uprisings as a moment where “walls of fear” crumbled, “red lines” were crossed and their crossing performed as acts of resistance.

Paper Abstract:

A genealogy of State violence in the Islamic Republic of Iran enlightens the present in at least two ways. First the technologies used to institute State control over society since the 1979 revolution helps to better understand the economy of repression today: its many faces (para/military, judiciary, death squads), actors, and objectives. In regards to the latter point however (the objectives or effects), the history of violence in Iran sheds a second light: by understanding how obedience was crafted through fear, individuation, figures of the enemy and the martyr, and above all, a political topography of “red lines” not to cross, we can grasp the scope and depth of what is being radically challenged by the “Woman Life Freedom” movement as a moment where “walls of tears” crumble, “red lines” are crossed and their crossing performed as acts of resistance. In this sense, the genealogy of nation and State formation through violence after 1979 in Iran offers tools for a seismography of the struggles between State and society, and allows us to understand the ruptures and changes brought about since the uprisings of Fall 2022 in Iran.