Ordering the City: Gender, Religion, and the Spatial Politics of Control

This talk examines the intersection of statecraft, gender, and religion through the lens of spatial segregation in urban environments. Based on extensive ethnographic and archival research in Iran, Dr. Nazanin Shahrokni explores how the Iranian state uses gender segregation as a governance tool, regulating women’s bodies and movements to assert its identity as an “Islamic” state. The talk highlights how the Iranian state positions itself as the arbiter of gender boundaries, with its policies illustrating shifting forms and intensities of gender domination. This approach challenges the notion of a monolithic state power, revealing how strategies evolve in response to everyday resistance, technocratic demands, international pressures, and global trends. As urban spaces and the social order change, so does the relationship between religion, the state, and gender. The talk reveals how women, navigating spaces governed by religious, market, and state imperatives, experience simultaneous constriction and expansion of their freedom to be and move in the city. This framework extends beyond Iran, offering insights into how different regimes of urban segregation function as fluid and adaptable instruments of state power across diverse contexts.

Nazanin Shahrokni is Associate Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University. She has a PhD in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley and has held positions in various international settings. Her scholarly work is located at the intersection of the global politics of gender, transnational feminism, feminist geography, and ethnographies of the state. She is the author of the award-winning book Women in Place: The Politics of Gender Segregation in Iran (University of California Press 2020). Dr. Shahrokni also serves on the Executive Committee of the International Sociological Association.

5:45PM Door open

6PM Talk begins

7PM Q&A time

If you have any questions, please contact SA Communications Coordinator at [email protected]. The Zoom link will be sent out on September 25 (Wednesday).

Simon Fraser University respectfully acknowledges the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen peoples on whose unceded traditional territories our three campuses reside.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W Hastings St, Vancouver, Canada