Iran’s Environmental Challenges and Movements on the MarginsBeyond the Centre
£95.00
About this book
Interrogates the state-centric approach to Iran's environmental crisis, reframing it as a profoundly political issue
- Draws on first-hand narratives of impacted local populations, environmental groups and NGOs
- Discusses narratives and case studies as featured in local environmental magazines and Telegram pages, including Zagros-e Mihraban, Sedayepayeab and the Save Kani Bell Campaign
- Challenges the Persio-centric approach to Iranian studies and gives a strong voice to the marginalised national communities in Iran
- Centres the previously overlooked periphery within environmental studies in Iran
This book shifts the focus of Iran's environmental crises from policy failures and technocratic mismanagement to the lived experiences of those at the periphery: non-Persian national communities, rural populations, farmers and displaced peoples. Drawing on original narratives and critical analysis, it reveals how water scarcity, mega-dams, interbasin water transfers and unsustainable development intersect with long histories of marginalisation, extractive industries and securitised state responses. Allan Hassaniyan highlights how environmental degradation has become a matter of survival for Iran's subalterns, exposing the deeply political dimensions of Iranian ecology.
Bridging environmental studies, political ecology and critical area studies, this timely work fills a significant gap in English-language scholarship, as well as spotlighting the unequal and often devastating consequences of the state's environmental crisis for its most vulnerable communities.
Reviews
This book is a vital contribution that illuminates the environmental struggles of Iran’s subaltern and marginalised communities in peripheral regions such as Kurdistan and Khuzestan—an urgent, understudied, and often invisible dimension of environmental politics. It powerfully links Iran’s ever‑pressing water crisis to its broader ecological challenges through rich and compelling empirical data.
Table of contents
Acknowledgments
List of Maps, Figures, and Tables
Abbreviations
Introduction
- The Historical Roots of Peripheral Marginalisation
- Methodology and Data Collection
- Chapter Overview
1. Theoretical Frameworks, Global Perspective and Evolution of Iran’s Environmental Movements
- Reflection of Global Environmental Movements
- Subaltern Environmentalism and Environmental Justice
- Middle East and North Africa’s Ecological Crisis
- Iran’s Environmental Movements and Challenges
- Peripheral Environmental Movements
- Iran’s Multifaceted Environmental Challenges
2. Iran’s Disproportionate Water Demand and Detrimental Hydraulic Infrastructure
- Environmental Policy and Development
- Detrimental Hydraulic Infrastructures
3. The Destructive Dams of Khuzestan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, and Mazandaran
- Northern Periphery’s Dams and Water Transfer Plans
- The Iranian Azerbaijan: A different periphery
- The Complex Network of Inter-Basin Water Transfers
4. Iran’s Water Mafia and State-Company Alliances
- IRGC and Iran’s Water Resources
- The Correlation Between International Sanctions and Environmental Destruction
- How Sanctions Strengthened State-Company Alliances in Iran?
5. Environmental Lessons from Rojhelat
- Environmental Degradation in the Age of Nation-States
- Hasankeyf: A Kurdish Struggle for Survival
- Kurdistan’s Environmental Issues
- Rojhelat’s Environmental Movement
6. Darian and the Save Kani Bell Campaign: Kurdistan’s Anti-dam Movement
- Darian and its Detrimental Effects
- Kani Bell: An Ecological Asset and a Kurdish National Icon
- The formation of the Save Kani Bell Campaign
- Rojhelat’s Potential for Sustainable Investment and Development
7. Baluchistan; drought, sandstorm, and environmental migration
- Baluchistan’s Drought
- Hamoon: Once a Source of Life
- Sistan and Baluchistan’s Untapped Potentials
Conclusion
References
Index