Abstract:
What is agency and who is a social agent? Can a specific age limit be set for participation in social movements? Are revolutionary uprisings a product of a particular type of subjectivity and socio-political agency that adolescents lack due to their age? What are the consequences of such an assumption, and how does it affect our perspective and the dominant narrative of the history of social-revolutionary movements in contemporary Iran. This article, presented as a dialogue between two researchers in the fields of education and the phenomenology of agency and resistance, seeks to answer these questions. It aims to critically examine the various aspects and (methodological) complexities of understanding adolescent agency and their participation in revolutionary-social uprisings especially in the afterlives of the Women, Life, Freedom Movement in 2022.
This conversation is part of an ongoing study on the role and history of education in contemporary Iran. In its first step, it aims to recognize adolescents as historical subjects and critically examine their agency in social-revolutionary movements. What you are reading is the translated version of an interview-article that will be published in an upcoming book.
