Gharbzadegi, colonial capitalism and the racial state in Iran

Bibliographic Data

ID4823622
AuthorsEskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi (0000-0002-2106-1473, University of London, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume24
Issue2
Pages173-194
Publication date2021-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePostcolonial Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1368-8790 • E-ISSN: 1466-1888
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13688790.2020.1834344
OpenAlexW3093662585
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited24

This article argues that the political thought of one of twentieth-century Iran’s foremost intellectuals, Jalal Al-e Ahmad (1923–1969) and his seminal work Gharbzadegi (1962), often translated as ‘West-struck-ness’ or ‘Westoxication’, can and should be understood through the critical study of race and racialisation. In contrast to the paradigms of ‘nativism’, ‘Islamic atavism’ and the demand for a return to ‘cultural authenticity’ that have traditionally framed the significance and reception of his thought, this article contends that Al-e Ahmad’s notion of gharbzadegi provides crucial insights into how predatory forms of colonial capitalism stratify the economic world order in accordance with what W.E.B. Du Bois famously called the ‘colour line’. The article submits that Al-e Ahmad’s political thought sheds light upon the conditions of Eurocentric and racialised forms of knowledge production and immanent material practices, and how they structure the lived experiences of colonial and semi-colonial subjects, as well as providing a remarkable perspective on how ‘race thinking’ and the ‘racial state’ were conceived and institutionalised in twentieth-century Iran

Aesthetics · Capitalism · Colonialism · Islam · Political science · Politics · Psychological nativism · Race (biology) · Sociology · State (computer science) · Theology · Gender Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy

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