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The Haves and the Have Nots: A Historical Study of Disability in Modern Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Abstract

This essay provides a historical analysis of Iranian experiences with disability. I will begin by reviewing the literary application of the term in various contexts. Next, I will examine the social milieux in which local observers, medical professionals, and policy makers talked about and treated disability. As state-run institutions emerged to address disability needs, health professionals often drew a distinction between physical disability and intellectual or psychological disability, raising ethical and legal questions about the status of the disabled in modern Iranian society. Finally, an attempt will be made to situate disability politics in contemporary Iran, where the disabled population has increased significantly as a consequence of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88). Although this paper concentrates on Iranian experiences with disability, comparisons can be drawn with other Islamic societies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , April 2010 , pp. 167 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2010

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Footnotes

The title for this paper comes from a symposium that I organized at the University of Pennsylvania in November 2006. My essay has benefited from the discussions and comments that ensued at Penn, and I thank the symposium participants—Sumi Colligan, Liat Ben-Moshe, Hila Ramon-Greenspan, Sandra Sufian (in absentia), and Bob Vitalis—for their input. I am also grateful to the School of Nursing and my colleagues there, especially Dean Afaf Meleis and Dr. Julie Fairman, for their support of the symposium. Finally, I thank Professor Afsaneh Najmabadi for her comments on an earlier draft of this paper and for inviting me to submit a panel on disability history in the Middle East for the annual conference of the American Historical Association. Thanks to her support, the panel was included in the 2008 AHA conference program.

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