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ID: 189069

Distinction and Survival: Zoroastrians, Religious Nationalism, and Cultural Ownership in Shiʿi Iran / Fozi, Navid

Fozi, Navid	Journal Article
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This article argues that the notion of Iranian culture employed in the public discourse of Zoroastrians allows them to tackle the dilemma of Shiʿi-dominated Iranianness without provoking Shiʿi authorities. The piece offers an analysis of ethnographic data, including detailed speech acts documented in Zoroastrians’ ritual spaces and cultural exhibitions. It explores the Zoroastrian configuration of an Iranian culture that summons and encodes pre-Islamic tropes and modern nationalist sentiments by constantly maneuvering around national, religious, and ethnic categories. This configuration's underpinning assumptions, narratives, and texts have powerful platforms in Iranian nationalist imagination. I propose that this arrangement attempts to carve out a space for Zoroastrians’ distinct identity by connecting the history of the Muslim Arab invasion of Persia to the Shiʿi hegemonic norms of Iranian culture today. It further invokes Zoroaster's indigeneity and teachings as the foundation of authentic Iranianness to establish Zoroastrians’ survival as a cultural system.

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Religious Nationalism ; Rituals ; Iranian Culture ; Zoroaster ; Iranian Zoroastrians

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ID: 189070

Seen from Bombay: an Iranian Zoroastrian Photo Album from the 1930s / Marashi, Afshin ; Patel, Dinyar

Marashi, Afshin	Journal Article
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This photo essay provides a visual archive of Parsi philanthropic efforts toward the Iranian Zoroastrian communities of Yazd, Kerman, and Tehran during the 1930s. The essay reproduces a collection of photographs from a photo album produced by the Iranian Zoroastrian Anjoman (est. 1918) for the benefit of Parsi audiences in Bombay. These photographs were taken and compiled by administrators of the Parsi-funded charities in order to demonstrate to Bombay-based Parsi benefactors how their charity efforts were being used inside Iran. The essay also discusses the importance of including visual archival material as part of the social and cultural history of modern Iran, as well as the unique sets of challenges that such archival preservation represents.

Key Words

Iranians ; Philanthropy ; Zoroastrians ; Photo Essay ; Iranian Zoroastrians ; Yazd ;
Kerman

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