فصلنامه تحقیقات فرهنگی ایران
سال دوازدهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 46، تابستان 1398)

As an Iranian tradition, the Nowruz ritual constituted based on the natural order and foundation. It may also be rooted in the social characteristics. Accordingly, it sets a context for peace and friendship in-between the human and the nature, as well as among the humans. The foundation is established according to the concepts such as the beginnings, the end of time, the diversification for happy-go-lucky, the life legend, the living proof, the echo-system of the nature, the harmony with the nature, focusing on the value - not price - of the nature, and finally the rhythmic tone of the time. Not only this foundation contributes in the social dimensions of human’s life in terms of peace and friendship, but also it is a good ground explaining that why it has a long-life in the Iranian culture during the historical trajectory. Thus, in the present study, it was attempted to explore the Nowruz ritual from the outset of the Iranian life in order to delve into a social solidarity and mental integrities made among them, and that could be extended over the generations and among other non-Iranian people too, and also to shed light on the mysterious long history concerning the Nowruz ritual in the past, nowadays and the future.

Murals are a kind of environmental graphic designs which in addition to adding to the environment’s beauty play a significant role in shaping the visual identity of the cities and due to their structural features are widely used in subway stations. Metro environment is one of the most crowded places in today’s modern life which has a substantial impact on the society’s cultural and identity changes. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the status and role of environmental graphics as a powerful medium in fashioning and influencing the city’s visual identity as well as its role in the revival of culture, art, and national and local identity. To this aim, 70 murals of Tehran subway stations were selected and analyzed quantitatively with respect to different dimension of national identity as well as different components of its cultural dimension. Finally, the data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively based on their content and structure. The data related to theoretical part of the study were gathered through library method and using the existing documents and information and the data associated with the analytical part of the study were collected through field research and employing observational tools.

The current study is an attempt to analyze the attitudinal developments that have occurred in the social transactions of the members of the so-called Psymentology spiritual group. The study is a descriptive one and has been conducted according to the principles of the Grounded Theory on fourteen current (active and non-active) and former members of the group. Results of analyses showed the changes occurred to the members of the two groups are not similar and are sometimes contradictory. In other words, the ideology that member have gotten through participation in the group and their spiritual experiences are not similar for the two groups; in other words, the current members evaluate such ideology as positive, while the former members have contrasting views. Cognitive and attitudinal changes among the members have been classified into four groups, each one with specific consequences. Identifying the hidden aspects of oneself, perceiving oneness in the universe and being united with it, believing in the consciousness of the existence and handing over all issues to it, and believing in the existence of non-organic beings.

Religious rituals and mourning ceremonies are amongst the most important resources of reaching identity intellectual ruts and the lifestyle by the individuals who collectively exercise and continue them in a certain region. Hosseini mourning ritual ceremony, in Masuleh Residential Estate, is the performance of traditional rites that put on their symbolic guise on the body of the Muslims’ lamentations after the entry of Islam into this region and updated the traditional ritual style for expressing sympathy with Imam Hussein (PBUH) and his companions. This cultural phenomenon that has been registered as a spiritual heritage needs to be seen so that its practical manifestations can be preserved and guarded hence not lost. Ritual tourism with its dramatic feature, repetition and redisplay of the course of event narrates the ritual actions and reactions before the eyes of the tourists and acts as a powerful medium for preserving the unique and lean characteristics of the regions. The present study is a descriptive and survey research that has been conducted through taking advantage of such means as interview and questionnaire based on convenience and snow ball methods amongst 340 domestic and foreign tourists of Hosseini mourning rites in Masuleh residential estate in 2018. The results of the investigations and analyses of the tourists’ ideas and outputs based on SPSS and Excel are expressive of the considerable role of ritual tourism in the preservation and guarding of the traditional rites and the necessity for equipping the region’s tourism infrastructures. In line with purposive guidance of the tourists and benefiting from the ritual tourism, the holding of specialized and well-planned tours is amongst the primary suggestions of the present study.

The present study phenomenologicaly examines and analyzes the lived experience of the Nowdeshah’ borderline residences. Based on a thematic analysis, four dimensions of the lived experiences studied are identified consisting of the cultural, environmental, economic and political experiences.  In the cultural and environmental experience, the border is considered as a limiting wall and a factor in the abandonment of human communication, where as the political dimension is considered as a liberating frontier. From the economic point of view, the situation is more complicated and there are three different perspectives which are commonplace to the border phenomenon. The first one believes that the border is "potentially life- limiting". In this perspective the border is a barrier to economic relations, although it is necessary and might be existed and accepted. This is due to that fact that without the border it is too difficult to live and survive. In the second view, the border is seen as “liberalization of the market." In this sense, the frontier makes the two countries' economies more interconnected, and there is a two-way exchange between them, which does not provide for foreign cities. In the third approach, the border is considered as "deprivation from the center". In this view the border is seen an obstacle to development, and even to the acquisition of amenities.

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.

The nomadic structure of the Qashqai tribe has an ancient history that has continued for nomadic life. The system had its own administrative political organization, which was shaped by nomadic living conditions and nomadic. At the head of this tribal system, there was a monk named Ilkhani, from the beginning of the formation of the Qashqai tribe, from the time of the Safavids, in the hands of a family called Shahilo. The main question of the present article is that what was the social political structure in Qashqai and how has the legitimizing mechanisms been implemented? The hypothesis of the article is that the social structure of the Qashqai tribe has been hierarchically in response to the needs of the tribe, and the structure of power in it is not necessarily based on the violence of the rulers of the tribe, but based on symbols, rituals and customs was in tribe. Therefore, the distinction between current research and this paper based on the theoretical framework of violence or symbolic domination, we study of the mechanisms and components of the legitimacy of the power of the leaders and attempt to study the subject from the perspective of historical sociology.