Culture Beyond Country: Strategies of Inclusion in the Global Iranian Diaspora

Offers an in-depth exploration of the Iranian diaspora and the negotiation of belonging With an estimated 5 to 8 million people spread across the globe, the Iranian diaspora has become a visible and dynamic cultural presence - especially in North America and Europe.Faced with shallow or distorted portrayals, diasporic Iranians have responded to persistent misrepresentations and marginalization by turning to culture as a deliberate strategy of inclusion.Reshaping how their stories are told, community organizers, artists, and entrepreneurs are actively challenging public narratives, asserting new cultural imaginaries, and navigating the terms of inclusion and exclusion, putting new visions of Iranian identity into the public eye. Drawing on transnational ethnographic fieldwork and over 125 semi-structured interviews conducted over the course of 16 years, Culture Beyond Country offers the first comparative ethnography of these cultural strategies of inclusion, examining the distinct pract