Highlighting the Context and Conditions in Which People Exist: a Conversation with Amina Tawasil
Writer Naya Clark speaks with author Amina Tawasil about, among other things, her new book, Paths Made by Walking.
In Paths Made by Walking: The Work of Howzevi Women in Iran, anthropologist Amina Tawasil draws deeply from her own lived experience and ethnographic fieldwork, crafting an intimate portrait of the women she encountered during her research in Iran. What began as a personal question about why women would choose to commit to practices that appeared externally limiting evolved into a far more nuanced exploration—one that challenged her initial assumptions. Tawasil reveals how the women she met were not only deeply engaged in Islamic education but were also using it as a means to expand their intellectual reach, including learning languages like English and French to bolster their religious scholarship. Through these stories, she highlights a form of agency rooted in local logics and shifting contexts, reminding readers that social transformation doesn't always follow familiar scripts but unfolds in complex, often surprising ways.
Tawasil takes readers inside the classrooms, homes, and study circles where these women are not just learning—they're reshaping what religious life and leadership can look like in post-revolutionary Iran. Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which ousted the United States-backed Shah and established an Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Khomeini, religious institutions gained renewed centrality in public life. Women’s roles within these institutions also began to evolve in new and sometimes contradictory directions. The women Tawasil studies in her 2003 fieldwork are products of—and active participants in—this post-revolutionary landscape. Their paths into Islamic education, far from simple acts of submission or defiance, become powerful forms of self-making and social influence. As they teach, translate, and organize, their work ripples outward, sparking change in their communities and beyond. By centering their voices, Paths Made by Walking offers a fresh, layered view of agency and transformation within Islamic contexts—and asks us to move beyond easy binaries of oppression and empowerment.
NC: You approached the research for this based on your own experience.
AT: Yes. I did ethnographic fieldwork for the book project. Initially, it was for my PhD dissertation, and then I turned it into a book. There was one question that I actually started with [from] my interest about the topic on women committing themselves to conditions or practices that appear on the outside as . . . limiting their mobility. . . . Initially, [I wanted] to look at the increased participation of women in Islamic schools after 9/11. I kind of assumed that within the vulnerable population, women would be the first to be careful about being public, especially Muslim women. And I was wrong, because there was an increased participation among teachers in Islamic schools. [During] my first semester of my PhD program, the president of Iran came to give a speech at Columbia University. There were protests against Columbia bringing him to do a talk. I was watching as it was being televised in a nearby café, and I think almost all of Columbia University focused on what was happening and how he was going to address the audience. And at that time, he invited the audience to come to visit his country to see if how the media covers Iran is actually in alignment with everyday reality for people. So I changed my topic right then and there, and I decided that I would do my dissertation field work in Iran . . . I wanted to look at the Islamic education [of] the women who I'd heard of that were supportive of the 1979 [Iranian] revolution. I knew they existed, but we didn't see much of them on television at all. Most of the images we see from Iran are men in turbans, usually in positions of power. I wanted to see what gaining access to a position of power, or at least Islamic education, did for them and what that looks like in their lives.
In my own experience, growing up with within a Muslim family from the southern Philippines, we kind of assumed [that in] everyday life men dominated the public sphere with a handful of women who were also in positions of power. Around the same time I became interested in the topic, I took this course from Professor of Anthropology, George Bond, who is considered an Africanist. We read a book in his class entitled Maidens, Meals and Money. In that book, [Claude Meillassoux] had a chapter on his reinterpretation of Marx's [ideas of] the first [people] who are exploited. He wrote that women are the first who are exploited because of their reproductive capabilities, and that they are hidden in the social organization behind men for a purpose. But the women that raised me actually didn't see themselves as mere exploits. They saw themselves as powerful [and] agentive. I felt there was something missing in that formula that may have nuances.
You said women are usually the first to be exploited, but you also explain a system that protects women with men being in the forefront. Do you think that sort of conversation is something that needs to be discussed more? If so, what are practical ways that it can be discussed?
I'm still working through these ideas, and the way that I work through these ideas are contextualized. It's really important that when we talk about it, we highlight the context and the conditions in which people exist. What do they have in front of them, and what are they doing with it, in order to look at systemic challenges, obstacles or forms of exclusion or this idea of being subjugated? [Or] what people are already doing to confront their challenges, as opposed to working with an ideal for what a whole person should be or needs to be, or what a good life needs to look like. I think that kind of conversation needs to be rooted in the logic of the people that are living it so . . . I think it's really complicated, but I think in terms of practicality and conversation, the local logic in operation, and how that local logic informs the unwritten code of conduct between human beings that identify with that logic is really important. That way, we can gain a better understanding, but also an appreciation for how people are experiencing the very granular moments in their lives, the systemic stuff, and everything that’s in between.
It also needs to be grounded in the assumption that people are always in motion. That means that the conditions are all also in motion. Sometimes when we think about transformation, it's not fast enough, or [we don’t see] the results right away. But I think we need to avoid conversations that fix people in place. An example would be poverty. People [can experience] poverty as a collective, a demographic and individually. We don't want to operate on how [we think] people should behave. . . . It may not be in the direction that we assume it should go, but the local logic, context and the history in which these conditions exist. I think those things are a good place to start having these conversations.
I really like how you incorporate discussions with women in these specific circumstances throughout your book. I’m wondering if any of their stories or perspectives on their placement in their society surprised you.
A lot of things did surprise me. I think going into it, I had one glaring bias, which is that all women should see education as something that is desired and that's something everyone should be trying to aspire for. So when I was doing my field work . . . I actually didn't speak to many women that chose or would rather choose not to be in these classrooms, [and would] rather be married and have children. . . . Most of the women that I spent time with were women who wanted an Islamic education. Some of them came from mathematics and science before Islamic education, so they wanted to be in the classroom. They wanted to challenge themselves. They wanted to excel. They could imagine themselves in the future as having learned or acquired knowledge.
One of the surprises was that there were women who didn't want any of it at all. They wanted a family at an early age. . . . I really didn't get to spend time with them because I was leaning more towards women who were in this position of wanting this education. They want the education, but it's not tied to being publicly visible.
Another surprise to me was their desire to learn foreign languages, specifically English. I think that surprise comes from another kind of privileged assumption that I made. I was actually put in my place because I was so excited about the books they were reading in English like A Time to Kill [and] Little Women. I write about a reading group, [where] they were discussing the story of Clair de Lune. It was translated from French to English, and it was an English class. I wondered why they wanted to learn English, [thinking] ”this is so exciting,” and it came across in my interactions with them. One of them [asked] me “why are you so excited? Do you think you're the only people who read dictionaries?”
Now I'm more aware of myself and it stuck with me, [and] the assumptions that I was making. One of them is [that] if they're reading, then they can relate to a lifestyle that is not theirs. It can relate to a framework of a woman's life that is not theirs, [or] the framework or lens that they use about life. They would ask me to spend time with them so they could practice their English. They had their notebooks, and would write new words, especially idioms, that I would use and try to practice [them]. . . . The women I spent time with were learning French, English, German. And after spending more time with them, I learned that they enjoy these stories, but they're also wanting to learn these languages so they can strengthen their Islamic jurisprudence research, when they're trying to do a comparative argument. So they want to be able to cite sources, read sources in these languages, and then bring them into conversation with Islamic text. In 1979 and the early 80s, in Iran, anti-westernization was a huge part of the revolution. There was this repulsion against languages that are considered European. They didn't want to be associated with it—at least publicly. Another part of the surprise was that they're actually embracing and learning these languages, in a way where they co-opt it. They poach from it so that they could use it to strengthen their Islamic jurisprudence debates.
You mentioned this was into the 80s, so this could also maybe be generational. I'm wondering how women narrated or talked about the generational shifts when it comes to pursuing education and piety.
So there is that worry, especially for the first generation [after the revolution], the elderly, the more senior seminarian women. I wrote about this in the last chapter before the quota. There's this worry that a generation of Iranians that were born after the revolution did not see what life was before the revolution and why the revolution happened. There's tension around that topic and what they need to do in terms of educating and advocating for women's rights within Islamic teachings and Islamic jurisprudence.
For [the older generation], it's really important that everything goes back to interpretation of text and interpretation of Islamic edicts. In [Paths Made by Walking] Farideh and Zayneb were the youngest in the book. Zainab, today, has just completed her PhD program in Islamic jurisprudence. When I met Zainab, she was eighteen turning nineteen [and] was learning English. Back then [I was] learning her approach compared to the older women of a different generation. Her approach was: “I'm learning English so that I can not only cite for my research, but also so that I can reach out to Iranians of my generation that consider themselves not religious, leaning more towards secularism.” So she kind of wanted to build bridges through the English language.
How [did the] women describe the impact of new media and global influences on their spiritual and communal practices?
When I was there, we all had flip phones. I think the biggest thing back then was satellite dishes—and that's what the anxiety was around these TV shows that were streaming what they call “corrupt lifestyles.” I remember they were having conversations around how it's terrible that television is a one-way transmission. It's just these images and sound bites, and the person watching [isn’t] able to speak back to it. Now, I see religiously conservative women who I don't know and weren't part of my research, that have these accounts and they're posting a lot of religious teachings . . . but I wonder what that looks like for these women today.
Another mode of sharing religious learnings was playfulness, and using humor to learn. What were some ways that surprised you in exploring that part of research?
Most of the time I had to remind myself that I'm always going to be in the gray area. I know how tricky humor can be . . . it was a kind of kinship between all of us to an extent. And I think a lot of it had to do with the humor and the play between us. I’m currently writing a second manuscript around me doing field work. When I started field work, they were weary of me. They wiped [sage-like fronds] around me to remove negative [energy] that I [may] come with. Then almost a year and a half later, [when I was] leaving, there were tears. It felt [like] a breakup.
You built relationships and friendships.
That’s one of the other surprises of doing this kind of work . . . I was not prepped for the breakup. Because in my training, there's always this idea of [having] to develop critical distance from your data or critical distance from the people you learn from. But we're human, right? So the whole thing about creating, developing, and standing firm on the critical distance has also been questioned with decolonial efforts against ethnographic methods. Looking back, [there was] a lot of humor between us. There was a lot of play, cheering me up. They made assumptions about my role as a mother. I have three children, and I did field work. So every day they would see me, the first thing they would ask me is, “Did you speak with your children?” The premise was that womanhood is about being a mother, and that children are at the center of my life. I mean, sure, they would try to cheer me up with jokes and humor about being a mom and being far away from the child.
You went into this with some forethought of women who are gaining power in their own ways, in their own communities. Was there anything that really shocked you in terms of other other formats within that?
I was surprised that many of the women who are really well versed—top of their class, respected in terms of knowledge, self-discipline—they would ask [their husbands] for permission to leave the house, right?
The other is that, in terms of power, there were women who were students of the Supreme Leader, but the power wasn't the association. I read about Farideh, and how [she] had to hide that she was a student of the Supreme Leader in her neighborhood because of the consequences of their neighbors asking their family members for favors, [assuming that they] have access to the Supreme Leader. Fauci would have to say, ”no, I don't do that” and their families would have to suffer . . . social consequences. And so I assume that power operated [with] limited consequences.
Then I realized there're a lot of other consequences, and it's a different kind of limitation. I learned a lot about the nature of that kind of power. Also learning that even though [the women] had this expansive access, that there were still highly ranked clerics who refused to allow women in their study groups. There's actual division around this idea of including women in their study groups. There were women who made it their objective [to] change the whole scene so that all women could have access to study circles, within the circles of highly ranked clerics.
Was there a level of awareness that they were doing something revolutionary? Was that something that was talked about outright, or was it more subversive?
It didn't feel like they were only focused on those issues. It felt like they had their hand in a lot of pots of problems, and that was one of them. That's how it felt when they talked about family [and] law. They talked about creating safety nets for young men, who don't know how to accept marriage rejection, because they don't have exposure to that.
Because after puberty, the education system is gender-separate. How do we create these safety nets for people who don't know how to deal with rejection? How do we bring the family together? “How do we inform women about how to protect themselves in the Islamic marriage contract, or in the period of courtship?”
So the older women were kind of foreseeing that with [the increased access to] digital technology, the problem could get worse, meaning a lot of young girls would be taken advantage of. So they were worried about that. After the revolution, these women basically inherited the problems of misogyny in society . . . coming from the religious and conservative background. For example, divorce rights or inheritance rights, but not the other kind of misogyny, where men feel it's a free-for-all, and they could just treat women any which way they want. [There were concerns regarding] how [to] educate our young women on how to protect themselves.
Did those [teachings] have more of a religious, Muslim undertone?
It was always grounded in text and examples of Muslim women in Islamic history and how they protected themselves, how they educated themselves, or “How do you aspire for a future?” “How do you make plans for yourself?” “Where do you want to see yourself?” It's always about . . . the examples in Islamic history. “How did they get that mobility?” So the conversation was around that. It wasn't around human rights or women's rights, but the women's rights were always grounded in Islamic rights.
How did they explain their relationship between their personal and their spiritual practices versus the more, I guess, feminist calls for self-discipline that you've noticed?
I think I knew early on not to use the word feminism because I was afraid that they would not want to talk to me. [But], in the beginning, they would ask [me], “what do you think about feminism?” So, I thought it would be my interview, but it turns out they were interviewing me. I knew early on I'm not going to use that word, but let me see what they think about what women are doing.
When speaking about or teaching about rights, [it’s from the angle of] having a personal problem, or maybe they heard of a friend who was going through something. The problem is temporary. It will pass. There's a lot of prayer and that you know what to do next is going to take some time.
I saw conversations between the more senior [women], worried about their grandchildren, or . . . children, and who they're going to pick to marry. It's a whole family decision. I thought that was also interesting. The choice of spouse is a group decision . . . to carry a burden [is] divided.
Was there anything that you might have done differently in your research?
I wish I could have spent time with women who didn't believe in any kind of education and learning from them. I really didn't pay a lot of attention to other parts of their [informal] education formal. Many of them created things with their hands, [like] jewelry, calligraphy, and carpet weaving. They were into the crafts. I wish I'd gone to have conversations with the men and ask them specifically about whose responsibility they thought it is to tackle misogyny. That's kind of the afterthought. I wish I had the opportunity to ask, or maybe [for it to become] part of my research design to ask about that.
What were some unexpected challenges in your methodology that you experienced when you were doing research in the seminaries?
When I was doing this research, I embraced the idea that completing the Persian language levels at the Persian language institute is only going to get me to a certain level, and that Islamic jurisprudence language is really difficult. The language is really rooted in Islamic scholarship. So there are different terms.
Going into the research, I kind of embrace the idea that I'm just gonna take what I can take. I'm gonna go with what I know, and I'm not gonna be able to know everything, and I would just have to be transparent about its limitations. [When you] do participant observation, you make certain assumptions about yourself. You're taught [not to] make assumptions about the people that you're with, [but] you're going to be spending time with people. You develop these relationships . . but I made a lot of assumptions about myself that I just became aware of when I hear them on audio and I cringe. [The women] really were so graceful . . . [and] forgiving in ways that they somehow let things go. Learning a lot about myself was really challenging.
The other is that I would get lonely . . . I became more aware of how I was moving through the urban space. This is not part of the book. I'm writing about this in the second manuscript. I really felt [like] I was a stranger all the time, and I needed to learn how to be comfortable with it. I was yearning for something familiar to me.
It seems [like] a very humbling experience and that you learned a lot about yourself. It's all such a cultural exchange. I think it's also very relatable, learning about people that have a lot of similarities and differences from you, and even if those are tied because of things like revolutions or cultural friction—all of that is context. In the stories that you had throughout Paths Made by Walking. Do you feel it speaks towards any bigger narratives outside of place or religion?
Recognizing the humanity in people. Building bridges is really hard. I definitely don't have the formula for any of it, but a conversation needs to be premised in the intent to understand. To understand where different People are coming from and how they're experiencing history. How they're experiencing everyday life is really important to even have that conversation. If the intention is “I need to change you,” it may not go anywhere, right?
I think it's really important to not have that urge to . . . change differences and make us all the same. I respect that difference, I understand why that difference exists, because this is what you have to address, and this is what I have to address where I'm from. I'm hoping that the book is about that [and when] people read it, it's relatable.
You're full circle to what you were talking about in the very beginning. It's all in context. You don't have the decisions in front of you that others may have. They may find what they're doing to be more or less empowering than you may think. I enjoyed reading this. Thank you. I think that it highlighted a lot of points that are very relevant to today.
Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Presumably the title owes something to Antonio Machado’s lines:
“Caminante no hay camino
se hace camino al andar.”