Decolonial Diasporas: Iranian Feminist Solidarity in Global Context

Abstract This essay argues that the women, life, freedom movement should be understood as crucial site for the study of revolutionary praxis and feminist theory from which scholars and activists around the world can learn. While much attention has been given to efforts to co-opt the movement by monarchist and other “regime change” factions in diaspora, a lesser-known diasporic consequence has been the creation of Iranian feminist collectives oriented around intersectional and anti-colonial forms of transnational solidarity. By analyzing three such collectives that aimed to uplift critical feminist orientations emerging from the uprising in Iran, I chart shifts in ideas about organization, the meaning of revolution, and the contours of a “decolonial” feminist analysis in the Iranian context. I argue that these Iranian feminist collectives have built on the transnational feminist practice of making connections across differences, placing their critique of the Iranian state in relation to other iterations of patriarchal and militarized authoritarianism globally, including in the west.