A Qualitative Study of Religion and Ethnocentrism Among Sunni and Shiite Kurds

The present study aims at investigating the relationship between ethnocentrism and religion among Iranian Kurds using a social-interpretative approach. The research methodology is qualitative and the data was obtained via in-depth interviews. The grounded theory was used for analyzing the findings. Based on qualitative-purposive sampling method and the theoretical saturation criterion¡ 31 Sunni and Shiite Kurdish residents of different cities of Kermanshah province participated in this research¡ and their perception and interpretation of ethnocentrism¡ and its relationship with religion were investigated and analyzed. Firstly¡ the collected data categorized into 53 basic concepts¡ 14 major categories and finally 2 core categories and was analyzed. Secondly¡ 28 concepts were obtained for Sunni Kurds¡ and broken down to 7 major categories ¡ including integrated Kurdish identity¡ dissatisfaction with government¡ secular interpretation of religion¡ the preference of ethnicity to religion¡ alienation to the Iranian identity¡ the self-determination right¡ and the role of ethnic elites. Then they were categorized under one core category¡ «secular Kurdish nationalism». Furthermore¡ 25 concepts were obtained for the Shiite Kurds¡ and broken down to 7 categories¡ including Kurdish ethnic identity¡ Iranian national identity¡ dissatisfaction with government¡ compatibility of religion and ethnicity¡ emphasis on the cultural rights of Kurdish ethnic group¡ secular interpretation of religion¡ and the lack of historical consciousness. Finally¡ a core category entitled «cultural ethnocentrism» was defined for them. A comparison of different categories obtained for the two interviewed groups¡ Shiites and Sunnis¡ revealed that they show similarity in two categories «dissatisfaction with government» and «secular interpretation of religion» ¡ however in other cases such as the interpretation of Kurdish identity¡ Iranian identity¡ and the relationship between religion and ethnicity they show major differences.