Paper short abstract:

This paper is based on an extensive fieldwork in Iran during 2002-2005 augmented updated with more recent research on the creation of unconventional kinship relationships among the families whose loved ones were either imprisoned by the Islamic Republic or taken captive by Iraqis during the Iran-Iraq War, and those who were killed in the massive political suppression of the 1980s or in the Iran-Iraq War. I look at the way the absences or losses of the family members, often the fathers or husbands, led these families to seek out alternative, and sometimes unconventional familial relationships. I look into the ways sustaining familial relationship was even further hindered for the dissidents’ families since so often they had to keep the killing of their loved ones as secret even among their own kin. This paper aims to tackle the unusual and complex realities that result from these violent situations as well as the creative tactics these families undertake in facing these hindrances. I also explore the different modes of kinship and bonds that are formed among the families of those whose death the state claims as its own and officially recognizes as martyrdom. What possible predicaments these families experiences in sustaining, or rebuilding new, kinship if their dead appear to belong more to the state than to their families? What are the points of convergence or divergence between these two different groups concerning their relationships to their dead and their own kinship relationships? These are questions with which my paper is concerned. Of my concern is also the issue of gender. Since most of the dead are male members of the family I examine the gender dimension of these absences and also their implications for the kinds of kinship bonds that are generated. What possible challenges or potentials these gendered deaths pose for regenerating a community or communities in the aftermath of such disastrous violent events as war or political suppression in the post-revolutionary Iran?

Paper long abstract:

Based on an extensive fieldwork in Iran, this paper examines the creation of unconventional kinship relationships among the families whose loves ones were either absent or killed in the war or political suppression of the 1980s in Iran. The paper is concerned with the way in which these absences or losses of often the male family members lead to the creation of unconventional kinship relations. It aims to tackle the unusual upshot of these complex situations and the creative ways of facing them by these surviving families. The paper hopes to explore different modes of kinship and bonds that are formed among the families of these dissidents as well as those whose death the state claims as its own and officially recognizes as martyrdom. It seeks to show the possible points of convergences or divergences between these two different groups concerning their relationships to their dead and their own kinship relationships?