Social construction of Kolbari phenomenon In the Border Areas of Western Iran (Exploring the Critical Life World of Local Activists in Baneh County)

In the past few decades, governments have ignored their redistributive functions due to growth oriented development ideology and neoliberal system and have quitted support of rejected poor people. In Iran, poverty has increased especially in the marginal and border areas, due to the neoliberal system and the political-economic centralism of the government. Since the Kolbari indicates poverty in border areas and so far no comprehensive research has been done about the causes of its formation. In this research, using critical ethnography method and considering the critical biosphere of border activists, we have addressed the causes of this phenomenon. The Research Society of this study consists of 25 informed people involved in the Kolbari phenomenon in the border city of Baneh that was selected by purposive sampling and Snowball method. The findings are expressed in both descriptive and analytical levels by Context-Based Analysis and Open and Central Coding. At the descriptive level, Kolbari's history and its various forms are discussed and at the analytical level, according to the respondents, 52 phrases, 32 concepts and 7 central categories have been obtained as follows: Economic poverty and lack of alternative sources of income, Feeling of structural discrimination, environmental constraint and the weakness of industrial employment, agriculture and tourism, construction of border, the withdrawal of government support for the poor, rental capitalism in the absence of industrial capitalism, Feeling of economic and cultural exclusion. According to the final finding, the Kolbari phenomenon is not the result of border residents' selection in the west of the country, but is formed by the mentioned factors.