From Empowerment to Advocacy: Innominate Identity Politics as Feminist Advocacy in Iran

Through in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation of a nongovernmental organization in Iran dedicated to advocacy for marginalized women, I demonstrate that in the absence of political opportunity for “rights” advocacy in Iran, unconventional modes of identity politics have emerged. My data suggest that some practices of identity politics in Iran depart in framing, strategy, and organization from conventional practices of identity politics prevalent in liberal democratic contexts where identities are invoked, deployed, and tied to a universal conception of “rights.” I introduce the term “innominate identity politics” to reveal a creative utilization of the framework of “capabilities” for identity-based advocacy where “rights” advocacy and group identity formation are not tolerated by the government. Identities, hence, are innominate (unnamed), yet fought for. This article explains the organization’s departure from the common practices of identity politics by examining three factors which necessitated the adoption of new frames and strategies: (1) the repressive politics of the state which had rendered the “rights” framework costly and inaccessible, (2) the social construction of the organization’s clients as “bare life” due to the intersection of multiple systems of inequality, and (3) the social actors’ perception of what constitutes effective advocacy.