A diaspora’s flag is the symbolic representation of that community. The Iranian flag, however, is a contested symbol among the Iranian diasporic community. As this research shows, the Iranian diaspora exhibits its cultural, political, and religious identities through three different Iranian flags. Through qualitative research, entailing months of participant observation and a series of semi-structured interviews, I investigate the underlying reasons for this flag disagreement. Through this research, I argue that an Iranian diaspora’s pre-migration communal history and post-migration environmental factors influence its establishment and maintenance in the host nation.
In this study, I revisit the diaspora literature to argue for the complexity of the concept of diaspora. I demonstrate how a diaspora assists the community in restructuring its lost cultural identity and establishing a social space to belong, in the time of the spatial and cultural dislocation. The Iranian diaspora’s flag selection is a symbolic representation of communal establishment and identity formation for the community. The Iranian flag debate indicates a communal divide; it is also an instrument to set social boundaries to develop a community under the symbolic representation of the ancestral homeland.
Furthermore, this research explores how the Iranian diaspora uses the Iranian flag as a proxy to indicate socio-communal expectations and intersectional social hierarchies that already exist among the Iranian community. When discussing the flag’s symbolic significance, the respondents relate the flag with three recurring themes of religion, gender, and sexuality. The association of the Iranian flag with these three social factors indicates the communal dynamics of the Iranian diaspora. These communal dynamics establish certain norms and values, but they also redefine each flag based on its socio-political history. The attached meaning to each flag consequently causes tension and disagreement among the Iranian community, which is not solely political. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The Iranian diaspora is a young and growing community that came into existence after the Islamic revolution of 1979. In this diaspora, there are three different flags on display, and each flag represents a socio-political ideology. The symbolic application of the flag facilitates this research in exploring the social interaction among the Iranian diaspora residing in the Greater Toronto Area and York Region. Through the examination of the flag debates, I investigate the significance of community building in the new host nation. I critically analyze the communal divide existing among the Iranian community and the flag debate that is a symbolic representation of Iranian group dynamics. The discussion of the flag for many starts a conversation about community development and socio-communal hierarchy. While the different versions of the Iranian flags bring the diasporic communities together, they also indicate social segregation caused by religious, gender, and sexual hierarchies existing among the Iranian diaspora.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/25148 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Khayambashi, Shirin |
| Contributors | Satzewich, Victor, Sociology |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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