It's Almost Like it's Not a Choice, I Just Have to: Intersectional Relational Agency, Gender-Based Transnational Repression, and the Iranian Women's Movement in the Diaspora

Through 19 semi-structured interviews with Iranian women activists across Europe and North America, this paper advances theoretical understandings of women´s decision-making in repressive contexts. While scholarship has examined the repressive toolkit used to target activists abroad, activists' responses and coping mechanisms remain underexplored. This paper introduces the concept of intersectional relational agency to theorize how Iranian women in the diaspora navigate activism under threat. We argue that women’s agency is not individually enacted but is informed by their intersectionally situated position and embedded within complex social ties, with family members, activists in the diaspora and in Iran, and the wider Iranian population. We forefront the reciprocal dynamics of care and solidarity which sustain activism in the face of burnout, while also bringing additional emotional responsibilities. By centering women's lived experiences, this framework captures the ethical, emotional, and political negotiations involved in resisting authoritarianism from afar.