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Decolonizing Iran: a tentative note on inter-subaltern colonialism

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-10, 03:53 authored by Ahmad Mohammadpour, Kamran MatinKamran Matin
This paper investigates the ways in which the nationalist narrative of the statist archaeology in Iran has contributed to the dominant nationalist discourse in systematic attempts to erase any evidence of the existence of a “non-Aryan” past in the Iranian plateau. Sponsored by the state, ethnoracial archaeological studies in Iran have functioned as a powerful instrument for constructing a desired past, one that is informed by Persianist primordial nationalism. To justify the state’s concurrent homogenization policies, Iranian archaeology has ascribed a sole historical agency to the Persian ethnie. Iranian archaeological studies have been employed by the Persianist intelligentsia and the state for propagating the idea of the singularity of “the nation”—one in which nonsovereign communities have no history, identity, or culture. Building on emergent decolonized literature on archaeology, this paper aims to interrogate some of the fundamental premises of nationalist archaeological studies in Iran.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Current Anthropology

ISSN

0011-3204

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Issue

2

Volume

63

Department affiliated with

  • International Relations Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2022-06-15

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2023-04-27

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2022-06-15

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