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ANALYSIS OF HIJAB BAN PRACTICES IN IRAN AFTER 2022 IN TERMS OF PANOPTICON THEORY: A CASE STUDY

Year 2025, Volume: 33 Issue: 1, 745 - 775, 26.03.2025

Gamze Aksan , Shakib Zarbighalehhammami

https://doi.org/10.15337/suhfd.1642295

Abstract

In contemporary Iran, the expansion of surveillance technologies has enabled the state to exercise precise and systematic control over its citizens, reinforcing a centralized and authoritarian governance model. In response to the women's resistance against compulsory hijab, the Iranian government has introduced and enforced stringent legal measures that not only monitor women's dress across various social domains but also curtail their broader social freedoms. This study critically examines the surveillance strategies embedded in policies such as the Chastity and Hijab Bill and the deployment of hijab enforcers in public spaces, analyzing them through the lens of Foucault's panopticism. Findings from this case study suggest that the extensive monitoring and enforcement of hijab regulations—whether by morality police or state-sanctioned enforcers—undermine women's sense of identity and self-worth, leading to a pervasive culture of self-discipline. These coercive measures, when examined in the broader socio-political framework, appear to function as part of a comprehensive disciplinary apparatus designed to reinforce gendered power hierarchies through systemic domination. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the intricate mechanisms of surveillance and control in Iran and their far-reaching implications for women's rights and individual autonomy.

Keywords

Compulsory Hijab Panoptic Theory Women’s Rights Women Life Freedom Movement The Chastity and Hijab Bill.

References

  • ABOLHASANİ, Sh., Taleghani, F., & Yazdan Nik, A. R.: The Appli-cation of Qualitative Case Study in Nursing: A Review Study. Qualitative Research in Health Sciences, 6(1), 2017, 103-111.
  • ALLEN Matt, ‘’See You in the City!” Perth’s Citiplace and the Space of Surveillance’, in K. Gibson and S. Watson (eds) Metropolis Now: Planning and the Urban in Contemporary, Australia (Sydney: Pluto), 137–147.
  • ASSA, Shirin, Unveiling Feminist Strike: The Case of "Woman, Life, Freedom" in Iran. Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice Issue. 44(2), 2023, 53-71.
  • ARENDT, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism. Schocket Books 1951.
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  • BAJEC, Alessandra, As Iran doubles down on hijab laws, women fight back. The New Arab, 2023. https://www.newarab.com/analysis/iran-doubles-down-hijab-laws-women-fight-back.
  • BERDAYES, Vicente, Traditional Management Theory as Panopticon Discourse: Language and the Constitution of Somatic Flows. Cult. Organ., 8(1), 2002, 35-49.
  • BOUSQUET, Gilles, Space, Power, Globalization: The Internet Symp-tom. 2006, Societies, 4: 105-113.
  • CASEY D, Houghton C. 2010. Clarifying case study research: examp-les from practice. Nurse Res, 1998, 17(3).
  • CRESSWELL Kathrin, Crowe S., Robertson A., Huby G., Avery A., Sheikh A., The case study approach. BMC Med Res Methodol 2011.
  • De ANGELİS, Massimo, Global Capital, Abstract Labor, and the Frac-tal Panopticon. The Commoner 1, 2001, http://www.commoner.org.uk/fractalpanopt.pdf.
  • De LANDA, Manuel, War in the Age of Intelligent Machines. New York: Zone 1991.
  • DEZFULİ, Sayed, The Biopolitics of Hijab in Iran. Open Journal of Political Science, 14, 2024, 512-530. doi: 10.4236/ojps.2024.143029.
  • ELENA Martinez-Millana, Andrés Cánovas Alcaraz, The panopticon prison as a “social condenser”: The study of the project for De Koepel prison by Rem Koolhaas/OMA (1979–1988), Frontiers of Architectural Research, 11(1), 2021, 31-52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2021.08.004.
  • FOUCAULT, Michael, Power/knowledge. New York: Pantheon 1980.
  • FOUCAULT, Michael, Discipline and punishment: the birth of the prison. translated from the French by Alan Sheridan. Har-mondsworth: Penguin 1979.
  • Gİ YEON Koo & HA EUN Han, To veil or not to veil: Turkish and Iranian hijab policies and the struggle for recognition, Asian Journal of Women's Studies, 24:1, 2018, 47-70, DOI: 10.1080/12259276.2018.1427663.
  • GILL, Stephen, The Global Panopticon: The Neo-Liberal State, Eco-nomic Life, and Democratic Surveillance. Alternative, 20(1), 1995, 1-49.
  • GORDON, Diana R., The Electronic Panopticon: A Case-Study of the Development of the National Criminal Records System, Polit. Soc., 15(4), 1987, 483-511.
  • KİAN, T., & Mahdavi, A., The Impact of Surveillance Technologies on Women's Rights in Post-Mahsa Iran. Journal of Gender Stu-dies, 28(1), 2024, 67-85.
  • LELOUP, Amanda, ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ The Politicization of the Hijab in Iran. International Relations Review. 13(2), 2023, 57-67.
  • LEMAN-Langois S., The Myoptic Panopticon: The Social Consequen-ces of Policing Through the Lens. Pol. Soc., 13(1), 2003, 43-58.
  • LUCK, Lauretta, Jackson, Debra, Usher, Kim. Case study: A bridge across the paradigms. Nurs Inq 2006.
  • LYON David, An electronic panopticon? A sociological critique of surveillance theory. Social. Rev., 41(4) 1992: 653-678.
  • MANN Steve, Nolan Jason, Wellman Barry. Surveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments, Surveil. Soc. 1(3), 2003, 331-355.
  • MATHİESEN Thomas, The viewer society. Michel Foucault’s “Panop-ticon” revisited. Theory Criminal., 1(2), 1997, 215-234.
  • MIR-HOSSEİNİ, Ziba, The Politics and Hermeneutics of Hijab in Iran: From Confinement to Choice Muslim World. Journal of Human Rights. 4(1), 2007. https://doi.org/10.2202/1554-4419.1114.
  • MOALLEM, Minoo, Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister, Isla-mic Fundamentalism and Politics of Patriarchy in Iran. Uni-versity of California 2005.
  • MOHAMMADİ, Oli, The Personal, the Political, and the Public: Per-forming Hijab in Iran, Journal of Performance Studies, (12) 3, 2016. http://liminalities.net/12-3/hijab.pdf.
  • MORADKHANİ, Homayun, The will to govern: the veil and its ob-jects after the Islamic revolution. Iranian Journal of Sociology, 17(1,2), 2015, 167-191. http://www.jsi-isa.ir/article_25067.html.
  • POSTER Mark, The mode of information: Poststructuralist and social context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1990.
  • RAFİZADEH, Majid, The New Social Order: The Islamic Republic of Iran and Foucault 2013.
  • RAGNEDDA, Massimo, Social control and surveillance in the society of consumers. International Journal of Sociology and Anthro-pology, 3 (6), 2011, 180-188. ISSN 2006-988X.
  • RAGNEDDA Massimo. La società postpanottica. Controllo sociale e nuovi media, Roma: Arcane 2008.
  • SHİRAZİZADEH, Fatemeh, Compulsory Hijab in Iran: Functions and impacts on Iranians’ daily life during 44 years of Islamic State. Master thesis. Linnaeus University 2003.
  • SWEENY, Robert W., The pedagopticon: Beyond ‘discipline and pu-nish’ in the classroom. Presentation at New Forms Festival, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2004.
  • WACQUANT, Löic, The Penalization of Poverty and the Rise of Neo-liberalism. Eur. J. Crim. Policy Res. 9(4), 2001, 401-412.
  • YİN Robert K. Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications 2003.
  • ZAHEER, Muhammad Akram, Umar, Hayat & Gul-i-Ayesha, Bhatti. The Hijab Dilemma: Anti-Hijab Protests in Iran and the Emerging Voices of Change. Insights of Pakistan, Iran, and the Caucasus Studies. 2(7), 2023, 37-45.
  • ZARBİGHALEHHAMMAMİ, Shakib., & Abbasi, Fatemeh. The De-mand for Freedom and Equality in the Street Below the Mo-vement of Woman, Life, Freedom. Journal of Advanced Rese-arch in Social Sciences, 6(3), 2023, 122-144. https://doi.org/10.33422/jarss.v6i3.1048.
  • https://www.asriran.com/fa/news/919081 Access:22.12.2024.
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  • www.mehrnews.com/xVtqz Access:22.02.2025.
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  • www.bbc.com/persian/articles/c2vz54g0zlqo Access:22.02.2025.
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PANOPTIKON TEORİSİ ÇERÇEVESINDE 2022 SONRASI İRAN'DAKI HICAP YASAKLARI UYGULAMALARININ ANALİZİ: ÖRNEK VAKA ÇALIŞMASI

Year 2025, Volume: 33 Issue: 1, 745 - 775, 26.03.2025

Gamze Aksan , Shakib Zarbighalehhammami

https://doi.org/10.15337/suhfd.1642295

Abstract

Günümüz İran’ında gözetim teknolojilerinin genişlemesi, devletin vatandaşları üzerinde hassas ve sistematik bir kontrol uygulamasına olanak tanıyarak merkeziyetçi ve otoriter bir yönetim modelini pekiştirmektedir. Kadınların zorunlu hicaba karşı direnişine yanıt olarak İran hükümeti, yalnızca kadınların kıyafetlerini çeşitli toplumsal alanlarda denetlemekle kalmayıp aynı zamanda onların daha geniş sosyal özgürlüklerini de kısıtlayan katı yasal önlemler getirmiş ve bunları uygulamaya koymuştur. Bu çalışma, İffet ve Hicap Yasası ve kamusal alanlardaki hicap denetleyicilerinin konuşlandırılması gibi politikalara içkin gözetim stratejilerini eleştirel bir bakış açısıyla ele almakta ve bunları Foucault’nun panoptisizm kuramı çerçevesinde analiz etmektedir. Bu vaka çalışmasından elde edilen bulgular, hicap düzenlemelerinin geniş kapsamlı denetimi ve uygulanmasının—ahlak polisi ya da devlet destekli denetleyiciler aracılığıyla—kadınların kimlik ve özdeğer duygusunu zayıflatarak yaygın bir öz-disiplin kültürüne yol açtığını göstermektedir. Daha geniş sosyo-politik çerçevede ele alındığında, bu zorlayıcı önlemler, sistematik tahakküm yoluyla toplumsal cinsiyete dayalı iktidar hiyerarşilerini pekiştiren kapsamlı bir disipliner aygıtın parçası olarak işlev görmektedir. Bu araştırma, İran’daki gözetim ve kontrol mekanizmalarının karmaşık yapısını ve bunların kadın hakları ile bireysel özerklik üzerindeki geniş kapsamlı etkilerini daha derinlemesine anlamaya katkı sunmaktadır.

Keywords

Zorunlu Hicap Panoptikon Teorisi Kadın Hakları Kadın Yaşam Özgürlük Hareketi İffet ve Hicap Yasası.

References

  • ABOLHASANİ, Sh., Taleghani, F., & Yazdan Nik, A. R.: The Appli-cation of Qualitative Case Study in Nursing: A Review Study. Qualitative Research in Health Sciences, 6(1), 2017, 103-111.
  • ALLEN Matt, ‘’See You in the City!” Perth’s Citiplace and the Space of Surveillance’, in K. Gibson and S. Watson (eds) Metropolis Now: Planning and the Urban in Contemporary, Australia (Sydney: Pluto), 137–147.
  • ASSA, Shirin, Unveiling Feminist Strike: The Case of "Woman, Life, Freedom" in Iran. Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice Issue. 44(2), 2023, 53-71.
  • ARENDT, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism. Schocket Books 1951.
  • AUDRİ, Iran’s women, digital rights, and human freedoms. The Alli-ance for Universal Digital Rights, 2023. https://audri.org/irans-women-digital-rights-and-human-freedoms.
  • BAJEC, Alessandra, As Iran doubles down on hijab laws, women fight back. The New Arab, 2023. https://www.newarab.com/analysis/iran-doubles-down-hijab-laws-women-fight-back.
  • BERDAYES, Vicente, Traditional Management Theory as Panopticon Discourse: Language and the Constitution of Somatic Flows. Cult. Organ., 8(1), 2002, 35-49.
  • BOUSQUET, Gilles, Space, Power, Globalization: The Internet Symp-tom. 2006, Societies, 4: 105-113.
  • CASEY D, Houghton C. 2010. Clarifying case study research: examp-les from practice. Nurse Res, 1998, 17(3).
  • CRESSWELL Kathrin, Crowe S., Robertson A., Huby G., Avery A., Sheikh A., The case study approach. BMC Med Res Methodol 2011.
  • De ANGELİS, Massimo, Global Capital, Abstract Labor, and the Frac-tal Panopticon. The Commoner 1, 2001, http://www.commoner.org.uk/fractalpanopt.pdf.
  • De LANDA, Manuel, War in the Age of Intelligent Machines. New York: Zone 1991.
  • DEZFULİ, Sayed, The Biopolitics of Hijab in Iran. Open Journal of Political Science, 14, 2024, 512-530. doi: 10.4236/ojps.2024.143029.
  • ELENA Martinez-Millana, Andrés Cánovas Alcaraz, The panopticon prison as a “social condenser”: The study of the project for De Koepel prison by Rem Koolhaas/OMA (1979–1988), Frontiers of Architectural Research, 11(1), 2021, 31-52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2021.08.004.
  • FOUCAULT, Michael, Power/knowledge. New York: Pantheon 1980.
  • FOUCAULT, Michael, Discipline and punishment: the birth of the prison. translated from the French by Alan Sheridan. Har-mondsworth: Penguin 1979.
  • Gİ YEON Koo & HA EUN Han, To veil or not to veil: Turkish and Iranian hijab policies and the struggle for recognition, Asian Journal of Women's Studies, 24:1, 2018, 47-70, DOI: 10.1080/12259276.2018.1427663.
  • GILL, Stephen, The Global Panopticon: The Neo-Liberal State, Eco-nomic Life, and Democratic Surveillance. Alternative, 20(1), 1995, 1-49.
  • GORDON, Diana R., The Electronic Panopticon: A Case-Study of the Development of the National Criminal Records System, Polit. Soc., 15(4), 1987, 483-511.
  • KİAN, T., & Mahdavi, A., The Impact of Surveillance Technologies on Women's Rights in Post-Mahsa Iran. Journal of Gender Stu-dies, 28(1), 2024, 67-85.
  • LELOUP, Amanda, ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ The Politicization of the Hijab in Iran. International Relations Review. 13(2), 2023, 57-67.
  • LEMAN-Langois S., The Myoptic Panopticon: The Social Consequen-ces of Policing Through the Lens. Pol. Soc., 13(1), 2003, 43-58.
  • LUCK, Lauretta, Jackson, Debra, Usher, Kim. Case study: A bridge across the paradigms. Nurs Inq 2006.
  • LYON David, An electronic panopticon? A sociological critique of surveillance theory. Social. Rev., 41(4) 1992: 653-678.
  • MANN Steve, Nolan Jason, Wellman Barry. Surveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments, Surveil. Soc. 1(3), 2003, 331-355.
  • MATHİESEN Thomas, The viewer society. Michel Foucault’s “Panop-ticon” revisited. Theory Criminal., 1(2), 1997, 215-234.
  • MIR-HOSSEİNİ, Ziba, The Politics and Hermeneutics of Hijab in Iran: From Confinement to Choice Muslim World. Journal of Human Rights. 4(1), 2007. https://doi.org/10.2202/1554-4419.1114.
  • MOALLEM, Minoo, Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister, Isla-mic Fundamentalism and Politics of Patriarchy in Iran. Uni-versity of California 2005.
  • MOHAMMADİ, Oli, The Personal, the Political, and the Public: Per-forming Hijab in Iran, Journal of Performance Studies, (12) 3, 2016. http://liminalities.net/12-3/hijab.pdf.
  • MORADKHANİ, Homayun, The will to govern: the veil and its ob-jects after the Islamic revolution. Iranian Journal of Sociology, 17(1,2), 2015, 167-191. http://www.jsi-isa.ir/article_25067.html.
  • POSTER Mark, The mode of information: Poststructuralist and social context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1990.
  • RAFİZADEH, Majid, The New Social Order: The Islamic Republic of Iran and Foucault 2013.
  • RAGNEDDA, Massimo, Social control and surveillance in the society of consumers. International Journal of Sociology and Anthro-pology, 3 (6), 2011, 180-188. ISSN 2006-988X.
  • RAGNEDDA Massimo. La società postpanottica. Controllo sociale e nuovi media, Roma: Arcane 2008.
  • SHİRAZİZADEH, Fatemeh, Compulsory Hijab in Iran: Functions and impacts on Iranians’ daily life during 44 years of Islamic State. Master thesis. Linnaeus University 2003.
  • SWEENY, Robert W., The pedagopticon: Beyond ‘discipline and pu-nish’ in the classroom. Presentation at New Forms Festival, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2004.
  • WACQUANT, Löic, The Penalization of Poverty and the Rise of Neo-liberalism. Eur. J. Crim. Policy Res. 9(4), 2001, 401-412.
  • YİN Robert K. Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications 2003.
  • ZAHEER, Muhammad Akram, Umar, Hayat & Gul-i-Ayesha, Bhatti. The Hijab Dilemma: Anti-Hijab Protests in Iran and the Emerging Voices of Change. Insights of Pakistan, Iran, and the Caucasus Studies. 2(7), 2023, 37-45.
  • ZARBİGHALEHHAMMAMİ, Shakib., & Abbasi, Fatemeh. The De-mand for Freedom and Equality in the Street Below the Mo-vement of Woman, Life, Freedom. Journal of Advanced Rese-arch in Social Sciences, 6(3), 2023, 122-144. https://doi.org/10.33422/jarss.v6i3.1048.
  • https://www.asriran.com/fa/news/919081 Access:22.12.2024.
  • www.hammihanonline.ir/fa/tiny/news-9931 Access:12.02.2025.
  • www.radiofarda.com/a/32691698.html Access:12.12.2024.
  • www.mehrnews.com/xVtqz Access:22.02.2025.
  • www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/05/armita-geravand-iran-cctv Access:22.02.2025.
  • www.sharghdaily.com/fa/tiny/news-906309 Access:15.02.2025.
  • www.bbc.com/persian/articles/c2vz54g0zlqo Access:22.02.2025.
  • www.bbc.com/persian/articles/c88jdzyvn9ko Access:22.02.2025.
  • www.sharghdaily.com/fa/tiny/news-891369 Access:22.02.2025.
  • https://rzto.ir/37vv Access:22.02.2025.
  • https://farsnews.ir/news/14020506000181 Access:22.02.2025.
There are 51 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Law and Society and Socio-Legal Research, Law, Gender and Sexuality
Journal Section RESEARCH ARTICLES
Authors

Gamze Aksan 0000-0001-5051-4630

Shakib Zarbighalehhammami 0000-0003-1824-5156

Publication Date March 26, 2025
Submission Date February 18, 2025
Acceptance Date March 21, 2025
Published in Issue Year 2025 Volume: 33 Issue: 1

Cite

APA Aksan, G., & Zarbighalehhammami, S. (2025). ANALYSIS OF HIJAB BAN PRACTICES IN IRAN AFTER 2022 IN TERMS OF PANOPTICON THEORY: A CASE STUDY. Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi, 33(1), 745-775. https://doi.org/10.15337/suhfd.1642295
AMA Aksan G, Zarbighalehhammami S. ANALYSIS OF HIJAB BAN PRACTICES IN IRAN AFTER 2022 IN TERMS OF PANOPTICON THEORY: A CASE STUDY. Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi. March 2025;33(1):745-775. doi:10.15337/suhfd.1642295
Chicago Aksan, Gamze, and Shakib Zarbighalehhammami. “ANALYSIS OF HIJAB BAN PRACTICES IN IRAN AFTER 2022 IN TERMS OF PANOPTICON THEORY: A CASE STUDY”. Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi 33, no. 1 (March 2025): 745-75. https://doi.org/10.15337/suhfd.1642295.
EndNote Aksan G, Zarbighalehhammami S (March 1, 2025) ANALYSIS OF HIJAB BAN PRACTICES IN IRAN AFTER 2022 IN TERMS OF PANOPTICON THEORY: A CASE STUDY. Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi 33 1 745–775.
IEEE G. Aksan and S. Zarbighalehhammami, “ANALYSIS OF HIJAB BAN PRACTICES IN IRAN AFTER 2022 IN TERMS OF PANOPTICON THEORY: A CASE STUDY”, Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 745–775, 2025, doi: 10.15337/suhfd.1642295.
ISNAD Aksan, Gamze - Zarbighalehhammami, Shakib. “ANALYSIS OF HIJAB BAN PRACTICES IN IRAN AFTER 2022 IN TERMS OF PANOPTICON THEORY: A CASE STUDY”. Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi 33/1 (March 2025), 745-775. https://doi.org/10.15337/suhfd.1642295.
JAMA Aksan G, Zarbighalehhammami S. ANALYSIS OF HIJAB BAN PRACTICES IN IRAN AFTER 2022 IN TERMS OF PANOPTICON THEORY: A CASE STUDY. Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi. 2025;33:745–775.
MLA Aksan, Gamze and Shakib Zarbighalehhammami. “ANALYSIS OF HIJAB BAN PRACTICES IN IRAN AFTER 2022 IN TERMS OF PANOPTICON THEORY: A CASE STUDY”. Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi, vol. 33, no. 1, 2025, pp. 745-7, doi:10.15337/suhfd.1642295.
Vancouver Aksan G, Zarbighalehhammami S. ANALYSIS OF HIJAB BAN PRACTICES IN IRAN AFTER 2022 IN TERMS OF PANOPTICON THEORY: A CASE STUDY. Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi. 2025;33(1):745-7.

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