Tribeswomen of Iran: Weaving Memories among Qashqa'i Nomads (International Library of Iranian Studies)

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Since the revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has permitted very few Western scholars to conduct research in the country. Here Julia Huang provides a remarkable account of local tribal Iranian life, depicting a community largely beyond the scope and reach of foreign travellers and the Western media. The Qashqa’i nomads are migrant pastoralists--Huang documents their difficult livelihoods and lifestyles, their society and culture, and explains how this Turkic-speaking group relates to the wider Iranian society and the Islamic Republic. Focusing on a small group of women, she shows us how they adapt to a rapidly changing world while retaining tribal values and a distinctive ethnolinguistic identity as one of Iran’s national minorities. Engagingly written and documenting a disappearing way of life, Tribeswomen of Iran is essential reading for all those interested in Iran, the Middle East, anthropology, nomadism and gender.

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Julia Huang lived among the Qashqa’i nomadic pastoralists in southwestern Iran for extended periods of her childhood and adolescence between 1991 and 2004. She is the author of a chapter in Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa (2006; edited by Dawn Chatty) and the co-author of an article on Iran in "Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East" (2006). She has areceived a Fulbright Fellowship for research in Turkey and works with an NGO in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Proficient in Turkish, Persian and French, she is pursuing a degree in anthropology at Yale University.