A Troubled Birth: The 1930s and American Public Opinion

Abstract

rules it encompasses are an alternative pathway to incrementally moving up the social ladder. To highlight the moral norms surrounding the cultural practices, Hashemi shows that the ability to be seen as economically self-sufficient, responsible, and hardworking is crucial for young men and women to prove their worth to others in the community. For young men, it helps to be seen as ‘‘man enough’’ to gain more opportunities for well-paid jobs; for young women, while economic deprivation is the primary driver of their initial entry into the labor force, the appeal of work is that it enables them to be seen as good and competent daughters and wives. Hashemi shows that the facesavers take calculated steps to lower the risk of being exposed as poor and present a middle-class front to others by manipulating their mannerisms and physical appearance. By presenting themselves as ba kelas (someone with class and moral character) and as belonging to middle-class society, face-savers are able to extend their networks to the world of the middle-class. At the same time, these young men and women use the public discourse of proper Islamic citizens, produced in the Iranian public sphere, to prove themselves morally pure citizens and differentiate themselves from morally impure others in order to gain jobs and access to significant others. For Hashemi, ‘‘facework’’ provides a low-cost, highimpact tactic to improve one’s lot in life in contemporary Iran, but it also leads to the embodiment of the moral dispositions endorsed by the game through daily practice. Despite the fact that the author’s approach provides her with a vantage point to view the cultural practices of everyday life beyond the macro-politics of the state, it ignores the impact of significant political turbulences such as the 2009 Green Movement and subsequent protests on the lived experiences of low-income Iranian youth. This becomes more important when we realize recent protests in Iran have moved geographically and discursively from middle-class Tehran to the marginalized neighborhoods in provincial towns in reaction to increasing economic hardship. However, students and scholars in the fields of sociology and Middle Eastern and Iranian studies will find the content of the book intriguing in that it offers a fresh approach and sheds light on the complexity of life shaped not only by poverty and hardship, but also by acceptance, hope, and the promise of a better life.