Reviving identity:an investigation of identity in Iranian artworks in the period 1958-1966 in relation to a contemporary fine art practice

The concept of identity is currently one of the most frequently examined in cultural studies. Identity refers to the identification of an individual with a certain unit based on signs that he/she consciously or subconsciously accepts as his/her own. There are two main currents in identity research: primordialism (essentialist approach) and instrumentalism (constructivist approach). In today’s individualized society, there is a shift in emphasis from primordiality, i.e. from that side of identity that is given, permanent, inherited, fixed, to instrumentality, i.e. to such a basis of identity that a person chooses, creates, or selects. The research focuses on Iranian identity and its reflection in Western literature and the Iranian art of dance. Iran has an exceptional position in its region and influences global events with its policy. The question is what allowed the Persians to remain Persians for more than two and a half millennia. Persian identity is expressed mainly in spiritual power, poetry, and religion. The Persians gave the world poetry, miniatures, and carpets. From the point of view of production prosperity, all useless things. But that is how they express themselves. They gave the world what did not serve to make life easier but to make it more beautiful (Kapuściński, 2016, p. 153). The empirical part of the research is divided into two parts. In the first part of the research, the authors focus on expressing Iranian identity in their traditional and modern dance. The Persian “classic” is characterized by an expressive movement of the upper part of the body, delicate movements of the shoulders and palms, and eloquent facial expressions. The dance is very poetic and often depicts scenes from Persian poems. The second part of the research focuses on examining how Iranian identity is reflected in Western literature. The study of Iranian identity is based on Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003), who is a representative of Iranian anglophone immigrants, as well as on an unintentional tetralogy of novels by Betty Mahmoody, the author of the novels Not without my Daughter (1987) and For the love of a child (1992), her daughter Mahtob, the author of My Name is Mahtob (2013), and Moody, Mahmoody’s ex-husband and Mahtob’s father, the author of Lost without my Daughter (2013). The culture of a nation is expressed in the identity of its inhabitants, and literature and the art of dance contribute to its understanding.

Protection of constitutional identity in light of the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Poland – a comparative study

This paper takes a broad and novel approach to analysing the Iranian Jewish community of Iran, both as a distinct group and as a constituent part of Iran’s wider population sharing its national culture. The goal was to find a new way of addressing the topic, avoiding many ambiguities, and bringing all discourse back to its starting point: Iranian identity. If we identify Persian roots as the focus and the heart of our investigation, and we establish that a cultural study of the Iranian Jewscannot be separated from Iranian identity itself, we not only shift attention to a common denominator that links a variety of topics, but raise new questions, new issues, and new considerations. The aim was to identify an analytical tool through which we could interpret and relate various outlooks on Iranian identity: the analysis led us to consider religion as the source of a common sense of belonging, in contrast to most scholars whose work is predicated on the dichotomy of “secularism vs religion.” Instead, the Iranian identity discourse that emerges from this paper finds connections and affinities across the common dividing lines represented by religion, ethnicity, and geography. Reinforcing an Iranian discourse through the Jewish experience can constitute a valid response to the deep crisis of the Iranian national question and the enhancement of national, economic, and religious alliances. This paper employs a qualitative approach to the framework ofnational identity, based on the idea of its progressive character and related to the concept of identity as socially constructed. The theoretical assumptions expressed throughout this paper have found their empirical explanation in fieldwork that the author conducted in Iran in 2019.

Debates surrounding national and international identity are becoming increasingly prevalent with the rise of nationalist and populist rhetoric in the public sphere. International schools, which are growing in number, serve as valuable sites for conducting research on national and international identity as they can be viewed as a representation of the increasing diversification of many schools around the world. The aim of the study described in this article is to determine how the national and international identities of young people are influenced by being educated in this context. The conceptual frame of the study brings together a variety of concepts related to identity, categorised under national identity, transnational identity and cosmopolitan identity. In addition, the concept of ‘third space’ is drawn upon to reflect on the individualised process of negotiating identity. The study, undertaken with two international schools in Belgium and Serbia, found that attending an international school influenced students in a variety of ways, with some students strengthening their sense of international identity and others their national affiliation. It also emerged that the curricula and culture of these two schools promoted a hierarchy of identities, with the highest value awarded to Anglo-Western identities.

The article presents process of shaping place identity on the example of an important for Pomerania region investment - European Solidarity Centre. The idea of a Solidarity social movement is strongly associated with the formation of post-socialist national identity of Poland as well as local identity of Pomerania, from which movement originates. The realization of the European Solidarity Centre aims to be one of the essential elements of shaping Gdańsk’s identity of space. The article is an attempt to analyse how the presence of realization gradually affects the formation of the place identity of new urban space. Analysis of this realization will allow on the one hand to verify design assumptions made by authors, on the other provides the opportunity to search for best description of still vague notion of local identity. This concept, though intuitively close to everyone still seems to elude conceptual apparatus of theory of architecture. The intention of this article is to explore the notion of identity based on the observations of the newly realized significant cultural space. This analysis approaches the concept of identity from two perspectives. The first approach draws from the concept of identity of Christian Norberg-Schulz. Here, local identity is seen as a unique set of characteristics of space. So seen the concept of place identity is a correlate of concept of personal identity. In this analysis, methods of description of personal identity were transferred to the identity of the place. In the second approach, the identity of place is understood as a unique for that place way of being in space, way to spend time and development of the site-specific urban rituals. Such a concept of identity, draws from the concept of place of Kim Dovey. Both presented approaches seems to complement each other but they also emphasize different qualities. The now-traditional concept of Genius Loci sees architecture as a structural system of meanings. Meaningful elements are seen here primarily from aesthetic perspective. As something we can see. In this perspective, the concept of place identity is seen as a static formation. This perfectly corresponds to design determinants of historical spaces associated with the concept of cultural heritage. In the authors’ opinion identity of the place is also built on the interactions that occur between users in space. The space in this approach becomes a catalyst for social contact. What is important for the user is the formation of identity through customs, rituals and urban traditions - that create new network of social connections. This concept of place recognizes dynamic nature of space identity - as a changeable formation which is continuously co-created. Such recognition can give better understanding of identity for specific design conditions, such as gradual formation of new urban spaces. It is so because this approach places emphasis on the processual nature of space identity - as in the case discussed in the article.

Migration has come to play an increasingly significant role in the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century in politics, economics, geography, and culture. One of the main concepts of the migration literature is the concept of immigrant's identity. For an immigrant an ability to formulate a new identity goes through the process of embracing a sense of belonging to two or more cultures. It is important to consider that immigration and its depiction in the 21st fiction has gained new meaning. The convergence of migration and globalization has reshaped the understanding of immigrant's self. Conflicts between the native culture and the host one are transformed into dialogues. In the article we are referring to Amin Maalouf's idea about transnational or mixed identity. He argues for the multiple identities in contemporary societies. The same approach has been verbalized in the research of Carola Suárez-Orozco who proposes the concept of cosmopolitan identity which embraces the sense of belonging to a global culture of inclusion. Today the work of identity formation is to synthesize different cultures. The article sets out to explore the psycho-emotional dynamics in the retrospective narrative of Dina Nayeri's novel "Refuge". It is argued that the act of self-reflective retrospection entails a steady decrease in a temporal distance between the narrator and the narrated. In the act of remembering the past the narrator of the novel discloses not only the moments of resentment of her Iranian identity but comes to understanding that to move forward she needs to acknowledge her past. Psycho-emotional dynamics of her meetings with a father develops from the complete resentment to the recognition of her Iranian identity. The moral distance between the narrator and the narrated permitted by the temporal distance between the past and the present helps the main protagonist, Niloo, to understand her desire to distance herself from the Iranian past. She starts building her new identity after embracing her cultural heritage. It is concluded that immigrant's identity today is based on the productive dialogue between different cultures which are united in one traumatized body of an immigrant.

Summary This paper aims at showing how the concepts of national sovereignty and national identity are challenged by the digital revolution. In the age of modernism, both concepts were defined as a condition for society’s loyalty to the political framework, but this long-established format changed with the new technologic developments. The digital revolution requires a postmodern – heterogeneous and fluid – idea of identity, as well as a post-modern idea of sovereignty, which is non-territorial, neither hierarchical. Therefore, the postmodern idea of sovereignty and the concept of identity are significant for the development of the concepts of digital sovereignty and European digital identity.

Iranian identity cannot be conceived of as a uniform monolithic concept. But, thanks to certain upheavals in the history of the country, it has turned into the triple concept of national/Islamic/modern. Hofstede’s (2001) cultural framework represents a well-validated operationalization of culture based on six cultural dimensions (power distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, short-term/long-term orientation, and indulgence/restraint) and this study explores the association between these dimensions and the three components of Iranian identity. To this end, the Cultural Dimensions Scale (CDS) along with the Cultural Attachment Scale (CAS) were administered to a sample of Iranian university students. Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis were employed for data analysis. The results revealed a significant relationship between cultural dimensions and the identity components. It was also found that indulgence is the sole predictor of National Identity, whereas Religious Identity has four predictors, namely, power distance, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and short-term orientation. And, Western Identity is predicted by power distance and individualism. Finally, the results were discussed and implications for soothing Iranian identity crisis through cultural interventions were provided.

The attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 and subsequent military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq created a sharp increase in expressions of national pride and the invocation of “nation” in political discourse. Using the 1996 and 2004 General Social Surveys, we document these changing patterns of national pride, and ask how they affect conceptions of national identity. We report three main findings. First, the data corroborate the conventional wisdom that there was a greater expression of national pride than before September 11, 2001. Second, conceptions of American national identity became more nativist. Finally, the conventionally accepted distinction between patriots and nationalists has shrunk; patriots, like nationalists, are more likely to express nativist conceptions of national identity during a time of threat than they were pre-9/11. Our findings have important implications for research on group identification and national identity formation.

Since the rise of mass politics, the role national identities play in international relations has been debated. Do they produce a popular reservoir easily tapped for war or bestow dignity thereby fostering cooperation and a democratic peace? The evidence for either perspective is thin, beset by different conceptions of identity and few efforts to identify its effects independent of situational factors. Using data drawn from new national surveys in Italy and the United States, we advance a three‐dimensional conception of national identity, theoretically connecting the dimensions to conflictive and cooperative dispositions as well as to decisions to cooperate with the United Nations in containing Iran's nuclear proliferation and Sudan's humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Attachment to the nation in Italy and the United States is found to associate with less support for militarist options and more support for international cooperation as liberal nationalists expect. This depends, however, on containing culturally exclusive conceptions of the nation and chauvinism.

This paper questions the introduction, in the mid-1990s, of the concept of European identity for the analysis of citizens' attitudes towards European integration. It argues that this notion was imported from social psychology without appropriate theoretical adaptation to the political democratic nature of the social group that a European polity would be. As a consequence, the current notion of European identity does not contribute very much to an understanding of the long-standing national and social differences of citizens' attitude towards the EU. The paper argues that for the time being, the identification process with a work-in-progress European polity should be conceived following three principles: First, European identity refers to a democratic community, that is, a special kind of social group whose vocation is self government. Thus, the link between citizens matters as much as differentiation with the others. Second, European identity is very definitively a work in progress. Lastly, it is developing in industrial societies, characterised by growing individualism but also remaining strong national identities. Building on Tilly's concept of identity and major works on national identity, this paper suggests a concept of identification with Europe that acknowledges the complexity of competitive processes at stake in identity change.

Usually, two rivaling concepts of national identity are taken into consideration: primordialism, stemming from the principle that national identity is an unchangeable, unyielding and basic human category, given by birth and colored with irrational feelings; and instrumentalism, claiming that national identity is changeable, fluid and gain producing. This study investigated the dominant concept of national identity in Serbia and was based on two surveys conducted in August 2003 (n = 1004) and August 2006 (n = 1005) on representative samples of eligible voters. Both studies confirmed dominancy of the primordial concept of national identity in contemporary Serbia. Data from the 2006 survey point an even more homogenized primordial concept (defined by a single factor) of national identity relative to the data from the 2003 survey. Primordial concept of national identity suppresses the importance of the state, culture and politics. In times of strong social turbulences, individual is moving away from the socially dependent concept of national identity towards an individualistic, familial concept of national identity. .

Introduction:National Identities and Sociopolitical Changes in Latin America, Antonio Gomez-Moriana and Mercedes F. Duran-Cogan 1. The concept of identity, Jorge Larrain Ibanez 2. Towards the Sociogenic Principle:Fanon, identity, the puzzle of conscious experience, and what it is like to be black, Sylvia Wynter 3. Words and Images. Figurating and Dis-Figurating Identity, Mercedes F. Duran-Cogan 4. From the petit recit to the grand recit: Experiences of subjectivity in modern Spain and the contemporary world, Antonio Gomez-Moriana 5. Latin American silver and the early globalization of world trade, Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Giraldez 6. Ethnic identity and the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Jose Alejos Garcia 7. The Indian identity, the existential anguish and the eternal return (El tiempo principia en Xibalba, by Luis de Lion), Tatiana Bubnova 8. Moors or Indians? Stereotype and the crisis of (national) identity in Ignacio Altamirano and Manuel de Jesus Galvan, Isabel de Sena 9. Engendering the Nation, Nationalizing the Sacred:Guadalupismo and the Cinematic (Re)Formation of Mexican Consciousness, Elena Feder 10. The Rhetoric of Pathology:political propaganda and national identity during the military process in Argentina, James R. Cisneros 11. National identity and state ideology in Argentina, Victor Armony 12. Caliban in Aztlan:From the Emergence of Chicano Discourse to the Plural Constitution of New Solidarities, Jose Antonio Gimenez Mico 13. Between Iconography and Demonology:The Faces at the Fiesta of the Senor del Gran Poder, Marcelo Nusenovich 14. Valparaiso School of Architecture Dossier, Various Authors

The ethno-cultural region of Hawraman encounters a multiple and complex combination of identity sources which its understanding calls for deep and contextual investigation. Applying a qualitative approach, the present study attempts to discuss the identity sources of Hawrami people. To these end, a half-structured interview was conducted with 33 Hawrami key commentaries and experts selected with maximum variation; Data were gathered. In order to analyze the data, we used Nvivo and MAXQDA software based on conventional qualitative content analysis proposed by Lundman and Greneheim. The findings of the study demonstrated that the identity sources of Hawraman consists of four themes: “Hawrami-Kurdish ethnical identity”, “Iranian national identity”, “religious identity”, and “modern identity”. The category of Hawrami-Kurdish identity includes Hawrami language and literature, Hawrami symbols, sense of attachment and feeling proud of being a Hawrami, preserving and defending Hawrami sources and interests, music and songs and the emphasis on social integrity of different regions as Kurd people. The Iranian national identity includes the everyday presence of Persian language, music and songs, rituals and Iranian values, and national loyalty. Religious identity embraces the beliefs, rituals, Sufism, Ghaderi and Naghshbandi mysticisms, the state of religion, tolerance and revitalization-fundamentalism. In the category of modern identity, we shall see challenging the ancestor’s beliefs, intellect, criticism and awareness, humanism and tendency towards modernism, cosmopolitanism and consumption. At the end of the study, according to the findings, the identity sources of Hawrami people model was recognized and represented.

Identity is a multidimensional concept that allows for different interpretations. In the European Union, the concepts of European identity and national identity are used in political documents, Treaties and decisions of the Court of Justice of the EU. European identity is based on a commitment to common principles that express European values. National identity is inherent in EU Member States’ fundamental political and constitutional structures, including regional and local self-government. The concept of national identity has become prominent in European legal discourse since the mid-2000s, when the Constitutional Courts of EU Member States started to put it forward as a limitation on the excessive, in their opinion, promotion of European integration. Until recently, the Court of Justice of the EU did not use the notion of European identity in its decisions. In 2022 it used the notion of “identity” in the context of the European legal order for the first time and defined the content of a national constitutional identity that is acceptable from the point of view of EU law by not contradicting the common values of the Union. The doctrinal development of the concept of European identity, like national identity, will be determined by the development of jurisprudence clarifying the content of European legal categories and principles through dialogue between the Court of Justice of the EU and the Constitutional Courts of the EU Member States.