Politics of Culture in Iran

Nematollah Fazeli

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9781138869790
• eBook ISBN: 9781134200375
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Political Economy
• Index: Economics

This first full-length study of the history of Iranian anthropology charts the formation and development of anthropology in Iran in the twentieth century. The text examines how and why anthropology and culture became part of wider socio-political discourses in Iran, and how they were appropriated, and rejected, by the pre- and post-revolutionary regimes.

The author highlights the three main phases of Iranian anthropology, corresponding broadly to three periods in the social and political development of Iran:

*the period of nationalism: lasting approximately from the constitutional revolution (1906-11) and the end of the Qajar dynasty until the end of Reza Shah's reign (1941)
*the period of Nativism: from the 1950s until the Islamic revolution (1979)
*the post-revolutionary period.

In addition, the book places Iranian anthropology in an international context by demonstrating how Western anthropological concepts, theories and methodologies affected epistemological and political discourses on Iranian anthropology.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Note on transliteration
• 1 Iranian anthropology and ideology
• 2 Anthropology and Iranian cultures: Iranian anthropology 1900–25
• 3 Anthropology and nationalism: Iranian anthropology 1925–41
• 4 Anthropology and modernization: Iranian anthropology 1941–79
• 5 Anthropology and Islamism: Iranian anthropology in the 1980s
• 6 Anthropology and Islamic modernization: Iranian anthropology in the 1990s
• 7 Iranian anthropology: a conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index