“More Money,More Problems”: Poverty,Recognition,and the Reframing of Success in Iran

Abstract

This article examines how stigmatized service workers in Iran make claims to belonging and worth amid heightened structural insecurity. I highlight how workers use evaluative schema or “success narrative frames” revolving around interpretations of wealth, the rich, and success to counter their disadvantage and articulate new imaginings of success. I demonstrate how these discursive strategies minimize the importance of material wealth as the barometer of a meaningful life. Instead, workers’ framings emphasize quality of life and benevolence, which serves as the basis of moral and/or aesthetic distinctions from the wealthy. Appeals to both dimensions lead workers to elevate their status and code culturally embedded competencies to indicate their success. In doing so, however, they paradoxically reproduce hierarchy and evaluation. These findings suggest how alternate framings of success can foster subjective well-being while also reifying boundaries and distrust.