Conditional Belonging: The Racialization of Iranians in the Wake of Anti-Muslim Politics

Sahar Sadeghi

Published by New York University Press 2023

Conditional Belonging

The Racialization of Iranians in the Wake of Anti-Muslim Politics

Sahar Sadeghi

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479805037.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

A compelling account of how race and politics have affected Iranian immigrants in the United States
and Germany

Iranians have a complex and contradictory relationship with race. Though categorized as “white” by the US census, many Iranian Americans remain marginalized, and experience racial and political stigma daily. On the other hand, Iranian Germans who have been in Germany for decades, and are typically regarded as 'good foreigners,' continue to experience marginality and discrimination illustrating the limitations of integration and citizenship. Conditional Belonging explores these apparent contradictions through a comparative analysis of the Iranian diasporic experience in the United States and Germany, focusing particularly on the different processes of racialization of the immigrants.

Drawing from eighty-eight interviews with first- and second-generation Iranians living in California and Hamburg, Sahar Sadeghi illuminates how international events, global political policy, and national social climates influence the extent to which Iranians define themselves as members of their adopted nations. All these factors lead to radically different experiences of belonging, or more specifically “conditional belonging,” for Iranians living in Western nations—while those in America might have situational access to whiteness, this is not always available to Iranians in Germany. The combination of these experiences results in perceptions, narrations, and experiences of what the author calls “being but not belonging.” Conditional Belonging is an important and timely book that broadens our understanding of how unpredictable and fluid a sense of belonging to a country can be.

Author / Editor information

Sadeghi Sahar :

Sahar Sadeghi is Associate Professor of Sociology at Muhlenberg College. She is the author of our Conditional Belonging: The Racialization of Iranians in the Wake of Anti-Muslim Politics (NYUP, April, 2023).Sahar Sadeghi is Associate Professor of Sociology at Muhlenberg College.

Reviews

Conditional Belonging compares the experiences of the Iranian diaspora in Germany and the United States. It foregrounds the role of politics in shaping racial stigmatization within each context. With data collected from two waves of interviews, Iranians’ identities become politicized through discursive forces tied to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the hostage crisis, the election of Donald Trump, the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe and the 2017 Muslim travel ban.

Muhlenberg College:
Review on Faculti Podcast, https://faculti.net/conditional-belonging/

Conditional Belonging demonstrates the ways in which empire (US) and racial nationalism (Germany) operate to situate Iranians as perpetual foreigners, including among the linguistically and culturally adept second generation and the most socially integrated of immigrants. Sadeghi’s fine attention to empirical detail shows us how these variations play out and how the rise of white nationalism in both countries has produced new yet divergent strategies of resistance.

Conditional Belonging is a brilliant, piercing ethnographic portrayal of how first-and second-generation Iranians in the United States and Germany navigate the complexities of racialization while struggling to gain full recognition and social belonging—without ever quite succeeding. Gripping first-hand accounts reveal how race-based nationalism continues to inform the social order in liberal, democratic states and amplify the sidelining of so-called foreign others. This timely book is a must-read for understanding both the visible and hidden racial projects that undermine collective commitments to unconditional inclusion and equality.

Conditional Belonging is a serious, timely contribution to scholarship on the racialization and migration experiences of Iranians. By providing the first in-depth, comparative analysis of Iranian immigrants in the United States and Germany, Sahar Sadeghi deepens our understanding of national and cultural membership in both societies. Clear, readable, and effective, this is an important book that answers the call for a more global and comparative Iranian diaspora studies

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Layered and Complicated: Migration and Settlement in the United States and Germany Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2. Guilty by Association: Iran, the US, and the Power of Global Politics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
3. Refugees and Ausländers: The Persistence of Racial Nationalism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
4. Racial and Cultural Flexibility: Conditional Belonging in the United States and Germany Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
Appendix: Research Methodology Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Keywords: Iranian; global politics; belonging; racialization; racial flexibility; cultural flexibility; racial stratification; migration; settlement; foreign policy; Iranian Revolution; hostage crisis

eBook

Published: April 18, 2023
ISBN: 9781479805037