A Sociological Study of Double Effects of Development on Ethnic Identity (A Study Based on Grounded Theory in Mahabad)

There has been a significant change in Iranian social entity due to economic and social development programs. These changes have brought about conditions leading to a great deal of social ideas advanced on the effectiveness of the collective identity of development. There are many concepts regarding interconnection of development and identity, however, the findings of this research are more consistent to post-development ideas that cast off applied projects in order to serve its main objective. This article aims to apply grounded theory to the study of the effects of development on ethnic identity and its findings show the double effects of empowering. Based on grounded theory and with the help of extensive interviews and collaboration of people in the city of Mahabad, this study has been conducted. It is a well-accepted fact that development has changed all social and economic aspects of life under the aegis of renovation and massive economic and social projects. This fact has led to uneven development and the occurrence of major tragedies regarding the Kurdish ethnic identity. On the one hand, these effects have attenuated social identity in different perspectives including economy, language, religion and lifestyle and on the other hand, it has provided new opportunities for ethnic identity. To sum up, the core of this research revolves around the “incidence of uneven development concurrent with Kurdish social identity tragedy” and its theoretical idea will be focused on “uneven development and new perspective of Kurdish national identity”.