فصلنامه علوم اجتماعی
سال بیست و ششم شماره 4 (پیاپی 87، زمستان 1398)

The current study aims to evaluate whether the explanations of Allameh Tabataba’i in human social life aspect are consistent or inconsistent. His writings on this subject come into two categories. Although the first one has entirely philosophical literature, the other one has theological-philosophical nature. This paper used the documentary and library methods and shed light on the collection of written works of Allameh Tabataba’i. The method of the study has been note-taking of the needed data and then analyzing them through descriptive-inferential ways. One of the findings of this study is that he has repeatedly interpreted and quoted the principle of Madani Beltab’e (social essence of human beings) to the principle of Mostakhdem Beltab’e (Taking others into one’s service essence) that are inconsistent with each other. If the first principle of human essence is being social (Madani Beltab’e), a society is a natural thing for him, and he is considered a cooperative creature who collaborates with other human beings to survive. Whenever the first principle of human essence would be the principle of Mostakhdem Beltab’e, his first essence assumed to be a person who takes into his service and competes with others to engage more services. He is not inherently a social being, but is forced to have a social life to benefit more from other mankind’s usefulness.

In this paper, repeated occurrence of political instability and lack of continuity of newly founded constitutional states are explained from the perspective of the relationship between society and state. At first, properties of the characteristics of society and the state are examined, and via institutional approach of Migdal, it is shown that how the institutions and social forces of this era are in continuous effort to obtain the right to determine "Rules" and exercise the exclusive power of "Social Control". They challenged the constitutional state, and sometimes with temporary coalition formed with some powerful social forces, turned states into their "agent," which in turn led to opposition from other forces which, as a result, escalates political strife. Lack of autonomy and conflict of interests between these institutions weakened the agency power of state, which gradually increased dissatisfaction and mistrust, reduced legitimacy of the state, deepened the gap between state and society, and ultimately provided situations for events such as coups, collapse of cabinets, centrifugal movements and so on which leads to challenges or unconventional changes for political stability. In fact, post-revolutionary instability should be seen as a mismatch between the power of the state and the power of society, or in other words, the consequence of an "Asymmetrical Relationship" between a fragmented and incoherent society and a weak state.

The situation of ethnic minorities in Iran in terms of ethnic discrimination and inequality has been the subject of concerns and public debates both inside and outside Iran for decades, but the actual and concrete experiences of the ethnic groups within the modern institutions of Iran has rarely been the subject of empirical studies. The study of lived experiences of the Turks and Kurds within an influential institution like the university can deepen our knowledge of the ethnic functions of modern institutions in Iran. Therefore, using the qualitative and phenomenological approach, this article studies the ethnic lived experiences of the Kurdish and Turkish students focusing on experiences of discrimination and inequality in four universities in Iran. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews conducted with 35 students. Data were analyzed using the thematic analysis technique that resulted in 3 main themes and 8 sub-themes. The findings show that the university experiences for the Kurdish and Turkish students especially for the latter includes significant aspects of the sense of ethnic discrimination and inequality occurring especially around two lines of language and religion.

Drawing on the palimpsest metaphor, the present paper explores the practice of fiction writing by the Iranian diasporic writers to show the way they translate the process of their translation into diasporic subjects and the way this translation results in cultural palimpsests and accented literature. To this end, two Iranian diasporic writers belonging to per-revolutionary and post-revolutionary diaspora have been selected and their self-expression has been scrutinized from the perspective of identity politics by a close reading. They include Fereidoun Esfandiary and Firoozeh Dumas. An attempt has been made to show these diasporic writers translate the Iranian universe into a Kafkaesque universe and the American dream. Moreover, it has been shown that how the cultural palimpsests from these translations can be read to make visible the identity dialectics of the diasporic writers. This analysis indicates that the identity politics of the post-revolutionary Iranian diaspora the continuation of that of the pre-revolutionary diaspora.

Migration become a lived experience for millions of Iranian in the last decades. This paper tries to shed light on the Iranian diaspora and its transnational relations with the homeland. Based on a qualitative method this ethnographic research has been conducted through 48 semi-structured interviews with Iranian migrants’ lives in Germany. It also followed by participant observation and expert interview with 9 associations which work for immigrants in selected cities in Germany. Because of various reasons such as time of migration, motivations for immigration, differences in terms of class, ethnicity and religious affiliation, intergenerational challenges and political perspectives Iranian migrants make a fragmented, hybrid and contested diaspora which impact upon diasporic identity.

Historically men have notably migrated more often than women. However, these migration patterns have changed vastly during recent years; more women are now able to access higher forms of education which often allow them to attain a more privileged level of social status. There has especially been an increase in the number of Iranian women migrating and as a result many authors have been questioning why such changes may have occurred. In this article, we attempt to answer the question: What are the experiences of Iranian immigrant women with a master's degree or higher living in the Canadian cities of Toronto and Montreal? To explore this question, 11 Iranian women (ages 20-40) who had chosen Canada to continue their higher education (masters and doctoral degrees) were interviewed. The study was conducted using the social interpretive approach and during the stage of information analysis the Colaizzi method was used. From the information obtained, it can be said that the lives of the participating women have changed immensely as a result of having migrated. This especially applies to their social lives, which seems to have been impacted drastically.

The implementation of reservoir dams has caused the displacement of more than 80 million people. According to the present study, more than 2 million people have been affected by the construction of dams in Iran. The present study aims at investigating into the socio-cultural impacts and consequences of two methods of managing the release of dam reservoirs. Criticizing these two policies and consequences and identifying the causal, contextual, intervening, strategic occur. The research method is qualitative and the Grounded Theory is used. The study participants were 47 informants and local experts who were interviewed with a semi-structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed based on three methods of open, axial and selective coding. The results of the interview analysis included 391 general concepts, 118 subcategories, 21 main categories and 2 central categories. The research findings based on the paradigmatic model show the relative stability of social, cultural domains in relocation, resettlement policy, the disruption of social structure and cultural context in cash compensation policy. The results of the present study can be considered in terms of the necessity of changing the approaches, determining the social sphere and the need to monitor and evaluate the social impacts of the projects.