The Invention of Iran: From 'Iranianness' to 'Persianness'.

The intellectual 'invention of Iran' is a potent image that owes its birth to the Orientalist practice of archaeology and historiography from the mid-19 to the latter 20 century: an intellectual enterprise that originated from the myth of Aryan race theory, the hypothesis of Aryan migration to the I...

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Publicado en:Asian Studies Review Vol. 49; no. 1; pp. 57 - 78
Autor principal: Mohammadpour, Ahmad
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Mar2025
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Mar2025
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        10.1080/10357823.2024.2355110
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        atl: The Invention of Iran: From 'Iranianness' to 'Persianness'.
      aug:
        au: Mohammadpour, Ahmad
        affil: Bentley University
      su:
        Nationalism
        Orientalism
        Intellectuals
        Imperialism
        Indo-Aryans
        Indo-Iranians
        Racial identity of white people
        Iran
      sug:
        subj:
          Iran
          Nationalism
          Orientalism
          Intellectuals
          Imperialism
          Indo-Aryans
          Indo-Iranians
          Racial identity of white people
      keyword:
        habitus
        internal other
        Iranianness
        nationalism
        Persianate world
        Persianness
      ab: The intellectual 'invention of Iran' is a potent image that owes its birth to the Orientalist practice of archaeology and historiography from the mid-19 to the latter 20 century: an intellectual enterprise that originated from the myth of Aryan race theory, the hypothesis of Aryan migration to the Indian subcontinent, and the subsequent positioning of Persian ethnie to be the sole author of Iran's 'glorious national past'. This Eurocentric narration has given rise to 'Persianness' as an ethnoracial form of supremacy akin to the role of Whiteness in Europe and the US. In this article, I not only examine the epistemic foundations of Iranian nationalism but, more importantly, show how the enduring legacy of the Orientalist interpretation of Iran's past animates the work of contemporary Persian scholars and elites. I argue that the historical construction of Persianness as a privileged identity has essentialised seeing, thinking, knowing, and speaking like a Persian and thereby presented it as a natural order of things. This raciolinguistic invention sustains a habitus that perceives and treats the non-Persian histories and memories only through the lens of Persianness – in which they are by definition less-than.
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    language: English
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