Student Organizations; Places to Deepen the Experience of Freedom: An Attempt to Make Possible an Alternative Narrative of the History of the University in Iran

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Reza Samim
Institute for Social and Cultural Studies
10.22034/irphe.2022.705213
Abstract
In this article, through a phenomenological research, an attempt has been made to provide a conceptual framework for presenting an alternative narrative of the history of the university in Iran. Those who have studied the history of the university in Iran have not been able to narrate the history of this institution as a place where students experience a different kind of collective life. For phenomenologists, however, recognizing the university as a distinct institution is possible only through identifying places where students experience a distinct life. One of these places and perhaps the most important of them is student organizations. For any phenomenological researcher who is interested in the history of the emergence and dynamism of the university as a comprehensive and distinct institution, the narrative of the unique experiences that students go through in student organizations and through them become community activists is important. The narrative of the history of the university is an alternative narrative from the perspective of the experiences of organizational students because it helps to conceptualize the university as a distinct and unique institution. In this article, in order to make such a narrative possible, first an attempt was made to explore student organizations from a phenomenological point of view and in relation to the concept of freedom. During this research, some data from in-depth interviews with students active in student organizations was used. In the other part, an attempt was made to narrate the history of the university as the history of student organizations, relying on the conceptualizations made. This narrative is an example of possible narratives that can be obtained by relying on the experiences of students of an Iranian university.

Keywords

Subjects

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  • Receive Date 17 November 2021
  • Revise Date 25 December 2021
  • Accept Date 06 March 2022
  • Publish Date 22 December 2022