Politics of Culture in Iran

This first fulllength study of the history of Iranian anthropology charts theformation and development of anthropology in Iran in the twentieth century. Thetext... » 

This first fulllength study of the history of Iranian anthropology charts theformation and development of anthropology in Iran in the twentieth century. Thetext examines how and why anthropology and culture became part of wider sociopolitical discourses in Iran and how they were appropriated and rejected bythe pre and postrevolutionary regimes. The author highlights the three mainphases of Iranian anthropology corresponding broadly to three periods in thesocial and political development of Iran the period of nationalism lastingapproximately from the constitutional revolution 190611 and the end of theQajar dynasty until the end of Reza Shahs reign 1941 the period ofNativism from the 1950s until the Islamic revolution 1979 and the postrevolutionary period. In addition the book places Iranian anthropology in aninternational context by demonstrating how Western anthropological conceptstheories and methodologies affected epistemological and political discourses onIranian anthropology. «