Through an ethnographic study of a women’s empowerment program in Tehran, and in-depth interviews with its workers, I examine the hegemony of liberal feminist conceptions of empowerment among secular and cosmopolitan middle-class activists and NGO directors. This study demonstrates that activists’ liberal conception of agency inadvertently erased the agency of the marginalized clients and their rights-based advocacy did not equip the subaltern women with a framework of gender justice that would find currency in their communities. While NGO staff and administrators contested the practicality of advocacy for sexual autonomy among marginalized women, the subaltern clients rejected the culturally reductionist accounts of their oppression by prioritizing economic justice. Rather than positing liberal and secular feminist discourses as over-determining, this study reveals that local actors continuously debate and contest globally circulating “women’s rights packages” in accordance with local norms, their standpoint, and lived experiences.

中文翻译：

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女性赋权全球本土化：伊朗的女权主义争论和非政府组织激进主义

通过对德黑兰妇女赋权计划的民族志研究，以及对其工人的深入采访，我考察了自由女权主义赋权概念在世俗和国际化的中产阶级活动家和非政府组织董事中的霸权地位。这项研究表明，激进主义者的自由能动性概念无意中抹去了边缘化客户的能动性，而他们基于权利的倡导并没有为下层妇女提供一个性别正义框架，该框架会在她们的社区中找到流行。虽然非政府组织的工作人员和管理人员对在边缘化妇女中倡导性自主的实用性提出质疑，但底层客户通过优先考虑经济正义来拒绝对他们压迫的文化还原论。与其将自由主义和世俗女权主义话语假定为过度决定，