Methods Applied: Political Transformation and Recent Ethnographic Fieldwork in Iran

Author: Hegland Mary Elaine   Friedl Erika  

Publisher: Berghahn Journals

ISSN: 1746-0727

Source: Anthropology of the Middle East, Vol.1, Iss.2, 2006-12, pp. : 1-19

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Abstract

In the 1970s social cultural anthropology in Iran was beginning to flourish. However, with the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent Islamic Republic of Iran, fieldwork in Iran became extremely problematic. Foreign anthropologists faced formidable obstacles to obtaining visas and permits. Anthropologists working inside Iran were also discouraged from anthropological participant observation. As a result, during the post revolutionary period, few anthropologists have been conducting fieldwork in Iran. Recently, some hopeful signs for a possible reestablishment of anthropology can be noted, among them the return of young Iranian anthropologists, from countries where they have grown up and gained an education, to their homeland for dissertation research. is article discusses the influences on fieldwork of politics—international, national and local—and projects, problems and strategies of some anthropologists who have conducted recent ethnographic fieldwork in Iran.