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Copyright by Golsheed Bagheri 2018 The Dissertation Committee for Golsheed Bagheri Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Millenial Iran: Political Disenchantment, Post-Network Society and Commodity Culture Committee: Kamran Aghaie, Supervisor Blake Atwood Benjamin Brower Mary Neuburger Anne Betteridge Millenial Iran: Political Disenchantment, Post-Network Society and Commodity Culture by Golsheed Bagheri Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2018 Dedication For my father Acknowledgements Pursuing the PhD has by far been the most challenging undertaking of my life. I couldn’t have endured this seven-year project without a number of people whom I’ve had the fortune of knowing throughout this endeavor. First and foremost I would like to thank my committee. Thank you, Dr. Aghaie, for serving as my chair—I owe my ability to navigate the academic realm to your guidance, for I have witnessed it grow substantially since the inception of our collegiate relationship. Thank you, Dr. Neuburger for agreeing to serve in my time of need, and thank you, Dr. Brower for your commitment as a reader. I also am incredibly grateful to Dr. Betteridge, whose advice from her time as my thesis chair continues to shape my academic path. Throughout the thirteen years that I’ve had the privilege of your mentorship, I’ve never once left a meeting without feeling utterly inspired and I am so honored that you continue to work with me today. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Atwood, although words do not suffice to express how indebted to him I feel. Thank you for all of the time and energy that you have put into reading countless drafts, providing the most thorough feedback, encouraging me to keep going, and helping me to realize my potential. I could never have produced a dissertation that I am so proud of without you. I would like to express my most heartfelt appreciation for my best friends, each of whom gave me a unique source of light throughout this arduous enterprise. I would like to thank Angela for her boundless kindness and compassion. She was the first to show me what true empathy looks like in friendship, and doing so, she set the bar. I am also very grateful to Jessie, whose sweet warmth filled my heart with sunshine on my darkest days. I particularly appreciated her keen attention to detail, her encouragement to follow my dreams and the commiseration that she provided throughout the course of our respective doctoral experiences. In that same vein, I would like to thank Ashley for her perpetual enthusiasm to discuss and explore ideas, concepts and theories, not only to apply to my work, but to the larger picture as well; I greatly admire her activism and her v staunch commitment to social justice, and in many ways, consider her a role model. I am also much obliged to Mimi for her unexpected but immensely welcomed friendship; our weekly Tumamoc walks energized me to take on the PhD like nothing else. I am so incredibly grateful for Lila, mi hermana, and I revel in the fact that we have become so close throughout these seven years. Her consistent friendship and our ability to bond over issues affecting Women of Color is so important to me. I also would not have survived the PhD without my second-generation bestie, Dena, whom I met during my first year in Austin. She understands me in a way that no one else can, and I believe our friendship is pure kismet. I am equally indebted to my Iranian best friend, Saba, not only because she humored my near daily inquiries about contemporary Iranian culture and vernacular, but also because she became one of my closest friends. Her espousal of feminism gives me hope for the future of Iran and I feel so fortunate to have made such a valuable friend through the course of my research. Finally, I am so incredibly grateful to Blake. I am amazed at how effortlessly he switches between his role as my mentor and as my friend, and cannot express my gratitude enough for him. I thank him for helping me find joy in writing my dissertation, for pushing me to be my best and for making me laugh so much along the way. My greatest thanks is reserved for my family; I would not be where I am today without their unconditional love and support. I am so grateful for Farah, my ride or die, without whom I couldn’t have gotten through this last year. I thank her for always going above and beyond, and for being the sister that I never had. I would also like to express my immense gratitude to my parents. My mother is my best friend, my confidant and my soul mate. My father is my world. I am eternally indebted to him for enduring a lifetime of backbreaking labor in order to provide me with the best that he possibly could. I owe him everything and to make him proud is my life’s highest ambition. vi Millenial Iran: Political Disenchantment, Post-Network Society and Commodity Culture Golsheed Bagheri, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2018 Supervisor: Kamran Aghaie This dissertation contributes to the field of modern Iranian sociocultural history. It engages in the historical analysis of the intersection of Iranian youth culture and media studies, presenting the implications of a Post-Network society in the context of contemporary Iran. Existing scholarship on youth culture as it manifests in Post-Reform Iran is heavily dominated by works that privilege resistance in their investigation. I, however, argue for a class-based reading of the subject, in which socioeconomic aspirations prevail over the intention of resistance in the characterization of Iran’s Millenial Generation. While the Reform Movement and Mohammad Khatami’s election served to render the post-Revolution generation as a legitimate political force, the Reformist President’s impotence to champion the demands of his youthful constituents throughout his presidential tenure triggered a pervasive sense of disillusionment among the Third Generation. The subsequent political inaction that it inspired arguably abetted the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and initiated the Post-Reform Era, which coincided with the Post-Network Era in media worldwide. During this time, the penetration of convenience technologies significantly impacted the formation of Iranian youth culture. As Iranian Millenials became increasingly dependent on mobile Internet technology, they vii created a new media environment that helped precipitate the emergence of a commodity culture. This commodity culture, along with the arrival and adaptation of Post-Network technologies, has led to the prevalence of certain trends among young urban Iranians. These trends serve as markers of socioeconomic class in today’s Iran, and are used by Iranian Millenials as a type of social currency to signify and validate their identification with their preferred class group. Ultimately, the adaptation of Post-Network media practices, the pronounced political disenchantment of the Ahmadinejad era, and the neoliberal economic policies touted by the Islamic Republic since the early 1990s, have all combined to create a society in which class identity has become a definitive feature of Millenial Iran. viii Table of Contents Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 From Hope to Hopelessness: Khatami to Ahmadinejad ........................................34 The Post-Network, Post-Reform Era: The Ahmadinejad Years ...........................66 Spreadable Sooriland: Millenial Generation Culture Creation ............................101 Trending in Tehran: Commodity Culture and Class Identity ..............................131 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................171 Bibliography ........................................................................................................185 ix Introduction Sometime in the fall of 2014, I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and came across a post that caught my eye. It was a stencil print on wood of a man’s figure holding up a sign that read, “PROTEST IS BEAUTIFUL.” Underneath the stencil print was another sign that read, “BEH TOKHMAM,” which is a vulgar colloquial expression in Persian that literally translates as “to my balls” and is used to indicate, “I don’t give a fuck.” This post had popped up on my feed because a number of the Iranians whom I followed had liked it. The image had resonated with them because it conveyed the general sense of apathetic aversion that contemporary young Iranians feel toward the idea of revolution. It was emblematic of the post-Revolution era Iranian, the product of the Islamic Republic of Iran. As a second-generation Iranian-American, I have always felt somewhat removed from what it means to be an Iranian of the post-Revolution era. Like many second-generation Iranian- Americans, my vision of the vatan1 was painted by stories and recollections of Pahlavi Iran, the golden age of the Diaspora’s collective nostalgia. I also grew up romanticizing my parents’ generation’s involvement in the 1979 Revolution. So, in 2009, when claims of a fraudulent presidential election inspired the Green Movement (a social movement primarily driven by the country’s youth), I imagined an opportunity to participate in a similar sort of revolutionary zeal (to the extent that could be expected abroad) that my parents had experienced thirty years prior. I became involved in the organizing efforts of the Iranian graduate students in my hometown during that summer, penetrating and achieving acceptance within this foreign (to me) community. After the suppression of the movement, I maintained my involvement with this 1 Homeland. 1 community, as they had become a significant part of my social network. In doing so, I had the opportunity to observe a demographic of post-Revolution era Iranians.