A feminist international political economy of sanctions and gendered violence: social reproduction, labour and survival in Iran

Since the post-Cold War era, economic and financial sanctions have become dominant tools of foreign policy for addressing national and global security threats. However, they remain largely under-explored through a critical feminist lens. Examining sanctions through a feminist lens is increasingly urgent—not only due to their growing use but also in light of key developments in international policies. Notably, since 2000, UN resolutions on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) have urged member countries to prioritise gender perspectives in all policymaking, including foreign and security policy. Notwithstanding this urgency, existing literature on sanctions remains largely gender-blind. In rare occasions when gender is considered, studies tend to rely on quantitative methods (e.g., Drury & Peksen, 2014), which fail to capture the gendered processes shaping these outcomes. Crucially, they overlook the role of the state, which, as a highly gendered entity (Peterson, 1992; Parashar et al., 2018), can respond to sanctions in ways that disproportionately affect women. This lack of attention to the state can hinder feminist advocacy and policymaking on WPS and foreign policy. For example, sanctions are sometimes uncritically viewed by feminist organisations as the most appropriate tools to punish state violations of women’s rights. My research addresses these scholarly and policy gaps by examining Iran, one of the most heavily sanctioned countries, particularly since 2012. It develops a novel qualitative feminist framework to analyse the gendered effects of sanctions across the everyday and state policy levels. Drawing on feminist IPE debates on the state, economic crises, and social reproduction, I show how sanctions have reinforced gendered structures of inequality and violence in Iran. My work also develops a feminist political economy of gendered violence in Iran by examining the often-overlooked role of material conditions in shaping gendered violence and inequality. As the first book-length feminist analysis of sanctions on Iran, it makes significant theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions to debates on sanctions, gendered violence, and social reproduction. My PhD thesis has received the prestigious PSA Award and has been nominated for the DSA PhD Prize in recognition of its originality and quality. So far, I have published one paper based on this research, providing the first analysis of sanctions' impact on gendered regimes of labour in Iran. The Fellowship will enable me to further consolidate my thesis into a book, to be published by the leading academic press, CUP. It will also allow me to publish two further articles (one solo and another co-authored) with leading academic journals. The Fellowship offers a unique opportunity to maximise the policy and public impact of my research. Leveraging my existing connections, I will write a policy brief on gender and sanctions for the UN Women Policy Brief Series. I will also translate my findings for key feminist organisations and policymaking on Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) and the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agendas through three policy blogs and a one-day academic-practitioner workshop. I will undertake an institutional visit to Johns Hopkins University to be mentored and receive feedback on my work from leading scholars on sanctions and Iran. Additionally, I will publish four blogs on gender relations in Iran in English and Farsi on widely-read public platforms. The fellowship will also be pivotal for refining a new research agenda and developing grant applications for the next stage of my academic career.