Global Dialogue, Magazine of International Sociology Association

The Fetish of the Particular, and the Sacred as Secular: An Interview with Abdie Kazemipur

by Abdolmohammad (Abdie) Kazemipur, Nazanin Shahrokni

GD 16.1

Debates over the global dynamics of sociological knowledge production have intensified in recent years, with growing interest in “national sociologies,” “Southern theory,” and “regional traditions.” Iran offers fertile ground for these discussions, as explored in an interview with Dr. Abdolmohammad (Abdie) Kazemipur, Professor of Sociology and Chair of Ethnic Studies at the University of Calgary and former president of the Canadian Sociological Association. His recent work examines how the sacred and secular intersect in modern Iran and how...

16.1

3 issues a year in multiple languages

Arabic

Bengali

Chinese (simplified)

Chinese (traditional)

English

Farsi

French

Hindi

Indonesian

Japanese

Kazakh

Polish

Portuguese

Romanian

Russian

Spanish

Turkish

Ukrainian

Latest Issue. GD 16.1, April 2026

Global Dialogue is available in multiple languages! Select the language below to access the magazine:

Select language

Available issue Access issue

If you want to propose other languages, contact globaldialogue@isa-sociology.org

The Sixth Conference of Conceptual and Critical Reflections on Iranian Society, September 2025.

The Iranian Sociological Association and the Institutionalization of Non-Institutionalization

by Esmail Khalili

GD 16.1

Sociology entered Iran’s higher education landscape via the establishment of the University of Tehran in 1934, where Gholamhossein Sadighi, a Sorbonne graduate, began teaching the discipline in 1940. In its formative decades, sociology in Iran was a small and elite field, shaped by French intellectual influences and tethered to the modernist nation-building project of the Pahlavi state. It remained a discipline cultivated largely within Tehran’s academic elite, with limited institutional reach and a narrow professional community. The 1979 Revolution and the subsequent Cultural...

Former Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran sign leaning against a damaged gate in the faculty courtyard.

Between Politics and Profits: Private Sociology Classes in Iran

by Reyhaneh Javadi, Zohreh Bayatrizi

External, domestic, and international political and economic forces have long shaped university teaching and research, often with both constructive and detrimental effects. In recent decades, underfunding, neoliberal funding models, and the politicization of teaching and research have forced universities in many countries to prioritize vocational training as well as research that is aligned with state or private sector priorities. On the educational front, micro-credentialism, MOOCs (massive open online courses), and certificate-based education are, at least in part, a response to these wider...

Ethnic diversity map of Iran showing major groups.

Ethnicity in Iran: The Question Iranian Sociology Avoids

by Aghil Daghagheleh

GD 16.1

Ethnicity in Iran is an elephant in the room – at least when it comes to mainstream sociology. Iran is home to several ethnic groups, including Persians, Kurds, Turks, Arabs, and Baluchis. Persians constitute the majority in the central plateau, while other ethnic groups are concentrated in peripheral regions. These ethnic divisions intersect with religious differences, as Shia Islam is predominant in the center, and Sunni populations are more prevalent in peripheral regions. Even this brief description raises sociological questions, such as how such ethnic and religious differentiations...

Situated Lives, Contested Knowledge: Reclaiming Gender Studies in Iran

by Shiva Alinaqian

GD 16.1

During the eight years I taught courses on gender, ethnography, and narrative in Tehran’s universities, my personal experience was continually entangled with institutional constraints and everyday politics. Being dismissed from my teaching position in 2022 – at the very moment the Woman, Life, Freedom (Jina) uprising unfolded – did not simply mark a personal rupture, it laid bare how the production of critical knowledge on gender in Iran is inseparable from power relations and forms of everyday resistance. In these conditions, even small pedagogical decisions – inviting...

Interior of the National Library of Iran.

Under Constraint: Sociological Research on Iran. A Roundtable

by Nafiseh Azad, Maral Latifi, Mahbubeh Moghadam, Fatemeh Moghadasi, Ladan Rahbari, Reza Sohrabi, Reyhaneh Javadi, Nazanin Shahrokni

GD 16.1

This roundtable brings together six sociologists working on Iran, situated within distinct academic fields and institutional contexts across varied geopolitical locations. While united by their disciplinary training in sociology, the contributors bring divergent positionalities shaped by their locations within and outside Iran, producing knowledge across national, linguistic, and institutional boundaries. The roundtable engages three key methodological questions probing the challenges, innovations, and ethical dilemmas of conducting sociological research on Iran. Though their research spans...

The Political and Social Economy of Labor Migration: An Introduction

by Karen Shire, Heidi Gottfried, Rina Agarwala

GD 16.1

For centuries, migration has toggled between being seen as an opportunity for some and a curse for others. From the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, migration from Europe to South and Southeast Asia, North and South America, and Africa offered new resources, land, and opportunity to European immigrants. But these same migration flows meant conquest, land dispossession, disease, violence, and (in some cases) total cultural annihilation for native populations in the receiving countries. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, forced migration from Africa and South Asia to other parts...

Book cover of Rina Agarwala’s The Migration-Development Regime

Sociological Contributions to the Migration Challenge

by Rina Agarwala

GD 16.1

Global migration is among the greatest challenges of our century. The topic itself is determining election results, and people’s views on the issue are dividing countries, communities, and even families. How can sociology help address this challenge? For decades, sociologists have helped redirect our gaze from simply looking at individual migrants to also understanding the broader economic and social forces catalyzing internal and global migration flows in the first place. Understanding these structural factors has helped illuminate who migrates, how and where they migrate, and...

The Indian State’s Practice of a Safe and Orderly Migration

by Ashwin Kumar

GD 16.1

Over the past few decades, considerable literature has emerged on the role of the state, particularly the sending state, in managing migration towards various political and development goals. The call for safe and orderly migration arises alongside the discourse on how migration and development are interlinked. The 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and the Global Compact for Migration adopted in 2018, outline a paradigm for “safe, orderly and responsible” migration. This...

Settlement tents in a forest with laundry hanging over a footpath

Caring Across Borders: Venezuelan Migrant Women in Colombia

by María Camila Vega-Salazar, Carolina Moreno, Suelen Castiblanco-Moreno, Javier A. Pineda D.

GD 16.1

At the turn of the twenty-first century, sociologist Arlie Hochschild introduced the notion of global care chains – transnational networks of women transferring care responsibilities across borders, typically from poorer countries to wealthier ones. This concept sparked a robust academic field analyzing how gender, class, and migration intertwine with caregiving. Much of the literature has centered on South–North migration: women from the Global South moving to wealthier nations to meet growing care demands. But what happens when care chains operate within the Global South? Latin...

[[hc.publicacion.seo_titular.replace("GD ","")]]

3 issues a year in multiple languages

Coming on [[hc.publicacion.fecha]]

Global Dialogue is available in multiple languages! Select the language to download the issue.

Select language