Iranian Studies in the United States and the Politics of Knowledge Production on Post-Revolutionary Iran

chapter 12 Iranian Studies in the United States and the Politics of Knowledge Production on Post-Revolutionary Iran

Seyed Mohammd Marandi and Zeinab Ghasemi Tari

Knowledge Production on Post-Revolutionary Iran

Understanding and analyzing the politics of ‘knowledge’ and ‘knowledge production’ on post-revolutionary Iran in the United States academia is insepa- rable from the context of relations between the two countries. Iran was once a close ally and a strategic pillar for the United States. During the Cold War, Iran was considered as a bulwark against Soviet expansion and later, when it grew wealthier from oil income, it turned into a market for u.s. arms and invest- ment. The close ties came to an end with the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution and when the Shah left Iran. Many Western countries regarded the 1979 Revolu- tion as a beginning of an ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ in the region with political power. For the United States, “the political change had transformed Iran from a staunch ally into one of the most intractable opponents of the United States in the region and beyond” (Haass, as cited in Brzezinski, Gates, & Maloney, 2004, p. viii). Since then, “the revolution is a political prism through which the two countries view each other” (Litwak, 2000, p. 158). Currently, Iran is the only country in the region with no formal relations with the United States. In the absence of diplomatic relations between the two countries, public and political understanding about post-revolutionary Iran in the United States was and is shaped by various sources such as think tanks, media, academia, and other popular and literary products such as memoirs and movies. The Ira- nian diaspora in the United States plays a major role in production of knowledge on post-revolutionary Iran. In general, diasporas play an important role in the United States. According to a study by the World Bank:

By far the strongest effect of war on the risk of subsequent war works through diasporas. After five years of post-conflict peace, the risk of re- newed conflict is around six times higher in societies with the largest diasporas in America than in those without American diasporas. collier, hoeffler, & World Bank, 2000, p. 5

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Diasporas are able to influence world affairs in numerous ways; they can play passive or active, constructive or destructive roles toward their homeland (Shain & Barth, 2003). Moreover, diasporas are involved in complex and shifting power relations. Changes in the relations of power within diasporas and the “way these changes intersect with external configurations of power” (Smith & Stares, 2007, p. 5) are influential in the diasporas’ knowledge production toward their homelands. According to Bozorgmehr (1998), “After the Revolution many of the Irani- an exiles turned to humanities and social sciences in order to explain what had happened in their homeland presenting themselves as viable alternative subjects” (p. 12). It is believed that the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution is the most significant factor that contributed to the growth of the Iranian diaspora. Karimi-Hakkak mentions the importance of the Iranian-American community in the expansion of Iranian studies programs in the United States:

I mentioned to the university that the capacity for growth [Iranian/ Persian Studies] was tremendous because Iranian–American community was highly educated professionals, etc. and so I insisted that if the university put in the resources at the beginning, the community will then contribute and we’ll see phenomenal growth. That exactly has happened. (Podcast, 2008)

In the absence of a considerable degree of alternative voices and due to the unique status of exilic Iranians as “inside the people” (Shain & Barth, 2003, p. 451), their produced materials gain special authority and credibility. The knowledge produced by diaspora—either academic or popular—is often used by Iranian and non-Iranian academicians and politicians in the West as au- thentic sources of information on pre- and post-revolutionary Iran. Iranians became increasingly influential in Middle Eastern and more par- ticularly Iranian studies programs and Iranian academic journals in the Unit- ed States. There was very little published about Iranians in the United States before the Iranian Revolution of 1979. According to the Middle East Studies Association (mesa) membership list, before the 1980s none of the 21 PhDs in sociology were Iranians, while during the 1980s 11 of the 19 who received their degrees were Iranians. Furthermore, a survey of publications of sociologist members of mesa in Sociological Abstracts for the 1985–1990 period showed that the three most frequently addressed areas were the Iranian Revolution, the historical sociology of Iran, and Iranian immigrants in the United States, in that order (Lorentz & Wertime, 1980).