Homed exile: external, internal and intrinsic exilic identities in Iranian cultural products

This dissertation offers an analysis of the dimensions of exile and considers how they are reflected in cultural products that emerge in the Iranian context. Exile has generally been understood to mean enforced displacement from a homeland. As a result, the cultural products of exile, for the most part, focus on the dimensions of exile in its physical, expatriated sense: what I refer to as external exile. Exile, however, is a complex phenomenon and it has a variety of dimensions. Exploring, analysing and exposing varieties of exile and exilic identities are important. Because, in the Iranian context, exile and the cultural products generated in exilic conditions play a key role in socio-political make ups of the country. The cultural products of exile, for the most part, aim to expose and through it resist oppression. Studying the dimensions of exile reflected in the selected cultural products show that even though the narratives of exile set out to resist enforced displacement they can instead perpetuate exile.

This dissertation looks at three various dimensions of exile: external, internal and intrinsic exile. It begins by considering the cultural products of external exile, using Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi and The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It suggests that the understanding of exile is too simplistic and proposes two other ways in which exile can be understood. The first of these is internal exile, which is the exilic condition of people still inside their homeland, using Ahmad Shamlou’s poetry and a film by Granaz Moussavi, My Tehran For Sale. The second is intrinsic exile, which is an exilic condition of people wherever they reside. The selected cultural products for understanding intrinsic exile are Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat and Azadeh Kanom and Her Writer or Dr. Sharifie’s Private Auschwitz, by Reza Baraheni.