The “Woman, Life, Freedom” Uprising in Iran and Abroad: Political or Culture Revolution?

Abstract In this article, we examine Iran’s 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, coining the term “culture revolution” to underline this movement’s distinctive characteristic. While Iran’s “cultural revolution” (1981–83) forcefully usurped the country’s public, educational, and artistic sphere, the “culture revolution” decisively ended the regime’s ideological domination of the public sphere. We explain how culture, using its innate resources of language, performativity, resignification, free play, and the collective trauma process, successfully reclaimed the autonomy of the cultural sphere and the physical and moral integrity of its citizens. We examine the dynamic and dialectical interactions of Iranians in the country, those in the diaspora, and their role in bringing about Iran’s “culture revolution.”