Sovereignty in Iran (Challenges to Eurocentrism from Ancient Iran to the Islamic Republic)

This book is a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary collaborative project examining sovereignties as a plural concept through the case of Iran. In so doing it challenges Eurocentric assumptions in the Humanities and Social Sciences and covers sovereignty from ancient Iran to the Islamic Republic including the Woman, Life, Freedom protests.

Part One explores sovereignty in ancient Iran by looking at the Elamites through a theoretical lens, the Achaemenids, and the Parthians and Sasanians. Part Two explores how territory relates to sovereignty alongside other dynamics in the Safavid, Second World War, Pahlavi and Islamic Republic periods. Part Three then focuses on competing and co-existing sovereignties in the southern Persian Gulf at the beginning of the twentieth century in Kurdistan and its relationships with Iranian governments during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as in the Woman, Life, Freedom protests. A non-Eurocentric framework requires the reader to think about co-existing and competing sovereignties with an ‘Area Studies’ lens. This approach moves beyond periodised understandings of history and not only contributes to better understanding Eurocentrism but also enables a greater appreciation of contexts, complexities and agencies.