Low-Income Islamist Women and Social Economy in Iran [Hardcover]

This book presents an innovative analysis of the solidarity/social economy among low-income religious women in Iran. For years, the role of low-income women in community care and poverty reduction has been underestimated and under-researched in the broader academic community, due to the invisible nature of these informal and predominantly religious networks. As economic hardship in Iran increases, women in the community have mobilized to bring assistance to those struggling to make ends meet.  The culmination of years of fieldwork in different parts of the country, this book sheds light on how religious women form the backbone of Irans social safety net as the welfare state fails and social protection policies dwindle.In a country with over 70 million people with different political, religious and social perspectives, facing many challenges such as internal economic problems and international sanctions, Iran remains a fascinating country in the way it continues to struggle with poverty and income disparity. The main purpose of this book is to shed light on ways in which low-income religious women are an important backbone of social safety net of the country. This topic remains under-researched in Iran and the issue overlooked. The invisible role of low income women in the battle against poverty and what might one call informal welfare state has been mainly is not exclusively overlooked and from this perspective this book's contributions may be unique specially within the context of the topic of solidarity economy.The objectives of the research in this book are four-fold: (1) to highlight the perceptual differences among women of low income households in this case those who are Islamic/Islamist and with regards to socio-economic rights; (2) to develop a better understanding of what the major concerns of low income religious women are, particularly given that this group is often quite supportive of the Iranian government; (3) to gain a better understandingl3