بنر ثبت نام در برنامه تحصیلی ایران آکادمیا
بنر ثبت نام در برنامه تحصیلی ایران آکادمیا
My Encounters with the Question of Iranian Identity

My Encounters with the Question of Iranian Identity

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Ahmad Ashraf
Iranian Sociologist

Abstract

In encountering the question of Iranian identity form my early childhood years to the present, I have been drawn to, struggled with, and ultimately abandoned both the “romantic Achaemenid nationalist” and the “critical modernist” approaches to fundamental aspects of Iranian culture. Instead, I have proposed a “historicizing” perspective that makes a clear distinction between Iranian identity (iraniyat) as a historical entity, on the one hand, and, on the other, “Iranian national identity” as a modern construct that cannot not be applied retrospectively to the historical past. This approach acknowledges the rise of “civic nations” as a product of modernity, but rejects the disjuncture between a people’s history and their contemporary cultural identity. In the case of Iran, I have argued that, while modern conceptions of “Iranian national identity” were subjectively and retrospectively constructed from ancient myths, symbols, and collective memories, they are in fact re-constructions of historical identities that are based on verifiable ethnolinguistic and territorial ties.

Cite this article:

Ashraf Ahmad. 2022. “My Encounters With the Question of Iranian Identity”. Freedom of Thought Journal, no. 11 (April):65-76. https://doi.org/10.53895/ZTIH6923.

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