When You Name It, You Restrict It: Cohabitation Typologies, Behaviors, and Lifestyle Activism in Iran

• In Event: 2483 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 14. Tactics of Everyday Life

Abstract

Extramarital relationships are banned in Iran, but still persist. Using interviews with 25 cohabitors, this research found that there are two rationales for cohabitating: a situational one and a countertraditional one. While those who think of cohabitation as situational report entering cohabitation due to externalities, cohabitation is an active choice for those who think of it as countertraditional, which we argue is indicative of their use of cohabitation as everyday activism. That is, those who conceive of it as situational temporarily deviate from the norm of marriage because of life circumstances but are generally in harmony with societal gender norms and eventual marriage. In contrast, those who frame it as a countertraditional act use cohabitation to indicate their activism against the traditional norms of society via a less public form of social movement, more common in Middle Eastern countries that might sanction those who overtly disagree with governmental policies.

Authors

• Marjan Davoodi, Texas Tech University

• Patricia Maloney, Texas Tech University