Guided Citizenship: A Study of the Linkage Between National Identity and Citizenship in Iran

• In Event: 146 - Regular Session. Nations/Nationalism

Abstract

This paper investigates the linkage between citizenship and national identity in Iran. To understand and contextualize the meanings of citizenship and national identity, I examine two kinds of discourse. I will first demonstrate how the basic idea of citizenship has been defined, articulated, and discussed in Iranian laws. Second, I will decode the socio-cultural meaning of “Iran” and “Iranian” through an analysis of school textbooks. I show that while official laws appropriate a “universal language” of citizenship that emphasizes the equality of all “Iranian citizens,” national identity is a cultural construct that promotes Shia-Persian identity while excluding various religious and ethnic groups from the national imaginary. The contradiction between the legal notion of citizenship as a guarantee of “equal rights to all Iranians” and exclusionary aspects of national identity poses serious questions about the value of citizenship in modern states and its capacity to protect minority rights. I argue that this seemingly contradictory structure is a crucial part of constructing national subjects and of the state-building project in the modern world. I will argue that citizenship is a transformative process that ties the citizen to the state. Citizenship acts like a conduit, a crucial mechanism for transcending strange citizens and arriving at loyal citizens of the state. In this paper, I challenge notions such as “post-national,” “transnational,” and “denationalized” citizenship and argue that citizenship still is enacted and practiced in a nation-state setting. I argue that citizenship cannot be understood separate from its national context and surrounding nationalist discourse.

Author

• Aghil Daghagheleh