Taziyeh as Methodology

This chapter proposes an approach to social science inquiry suited to the Iranian case and, more broadly, to the silences that constitute revolutionary mobilization and memorialization. With reference to a partial archive of interview data with people who experienced the mass uprisings of late 1978 and early 1979, and analytical statements they made in interviews about their experience of popular assemblies, the chapter shows how individual accounts from opposing ideological positions and social classes converged around a shared concept of collective identity in the image of Zaynab bint Ali. The chapter weaves between interviews conducted with pro-Khomeini Islamists active in Iran during the late 1970s (all of whom were men) and interviews conducted with women from leftist groups or unaffiliated members of the population as well as stories from a women’s daily magazine published at the time. It shows that narrative reception and judgment play an important role in revolutionary action, the representation of which augurs a comparative methodology for social science inquiry about revolution in the Global South.