Social Construction of Population Policies and Problems in Iran Since 1963

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12980554
AutoresAbouali Vedadhir (0000-0001-8620-1396, University of Tehran, autor de correspondencia), Seyedhadi Marjaei (0000-0002-8136-9859, Institut de Recherche sur les Phénomènes Hors Équilibre, autor de correspondencia)
Año2023
Volumen32
Número4
Páginas507-522
Fecha de publicación2023-10-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaMiddle East Critique (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1943-6149 • E-ISSN: 1943-6157
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/19436149.2023.2268860
OpenAlexW4388526477
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas19

Population has been and continues to be a significant matter of concern and contention in Iran. A range of different claims-makers, with varying dramas, ideologies, resources, rhetorical strategies and schemas have made claims that name and frame the population problem in particular ways to influence policy processes, and the experiences, meanings, and practices of people in everyday life. As a result, since 1967, mainly in post-revolutionary Iran, there has been the rise and fall of contesting narratives of the population as a social problem. Drawing on theoretical insights from social constructionism, we track these debates. In particular, we are interested in how claims-makers use rhetorical strategies and mobilize resources to convince others and to influence policy processes through social problem games and works. In other words, we examine the claims-making activities around the population as a social problem over the last half-century in Iran, showing how an understanding of these activities can enrich our understanding of definitional processes. We also discuss how certain discourses, policies and social constructions of population and family planning have become dominant and have influenced cultural meanings, popular images and the daily life experiences of people, particularly women and their prospects of reproduction and motherhood, for the most part, in the shadow of interpretations of Islamic Sharia law enforced since the 1979 Revolution. Building on the constructionist analysis and interoperation of contesting anti-natalist and pronatalist claims and policies over the last half-century in Iran, this article highlights how images of population problems are constructed socio-culturally with actual impact on individuals' everyday lives in society, and how people find ways to respond, resist and counter the dominant discourses and policies about family planning, population and reproduction and family. Hence, the contesting claims, definitions and discourses around population have not been merely abstract points of debate, but they have penetrated the emotions, memories, relationships, prospects and practices of people in Iran. The results reveal that there are several existing and emerging dialectics, paradoxes, and uncertainties on population policies and problems at multiple levels, with each of these definitions having key insights and implications for policy-related scientific research (science), the policy process and its outcomes, reproductive prospects and the practices of people (public).Key Words: Claims-making activitiesIranpopulation policiesreproductionsocial constructionism AcknowledgmentsWe are warmly grateful to Professor Dorothy Pawluch (McMaster University) for her enduring contributions to social constructionism and for her valuable ideas on the very first draft of this manuscript. We also would like to thank Professor Mahmoud Ghazi Tabatabaei (University of Tehran) and Dr. S. M. Hani Sadati (The Centre for Community Based Research & McGill University) for their contributions to earlier versions of the manuscript. We also thank Dr. Fahimeh Ahmadian-Yazdi for her exceptional formatting work on this manuscript.Disclosure StatementThe authors reported no conflict of interest in the research for or writing of this article.Notes1 Akbar Aghajanian (1991) Population Change in Iran, 1966-86: A Stalled Demographic Transition? Population and Development Review, 17(4), pp. 703-715.2 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Amir Mehryar, Gavin Jones, and Peter McDonald (Citation2002). Revolution, War and Modernization: Population policy and fertility change in Iran, Journal of population research, 19(1), pp. 25-46.3 Ibid.4 Aghajanian, "Population."5 Ibid.6 Marie Ladier-Fouladi (Citation2021) The Islamic Republic of Iran's New Population Policy and Recent Changes in Fertility, Iranian Studies 54 (5-6), pp. 907-930.7 Farshad Farzadfar, Mohsen Naghavi & Sadaf G. 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