ABSTRACT
Based on six months of ethnographic fieldwork in an Iranian seaside town, Bandar Abbas in 2015–2016, this chapter examines forms of sociality and conflicting moral orders that the Basij interventions produce in a poor neighbourhood. Since the 1979 Revolution, almost all rural and urban neighbourhoods in Iran have hosted paramilitary bases of the Basij. These pro-regime Basij bases serve as cultural and political institutions, as well as spaces designed to regulate and police the moral orders within a neighbourhood. Developed over four decades, the Basij has combined hard security (community policing) with soft security (faith-based youth programmes and revolutionary training). To provide a situated understanding of the Basij security practices, I ask: How do the Basijis struggle to tackle crimes rife in their poor neighbourhood through the provision of faith-based youth programmes and revolutionary course training? How are the interdependent neighbourly relations affected by the security practices of the Basij and how do these relations regularly oscillate between intimacy and antagonism? In an attempt to address these questions, I develop two interrelated arguments: First, I argue that governing a neighbourhood is closely linked to local sociality. Second, I show that security always entails some degree of intimacy and the constant breach of those intimate bonds.
