Jabbar Rahmani[1]

Abstract

Arbaeen pilgrimage walk is one great phenomenon that has become popular in the Shia world in recent years and has led to a vast transformation in religious policies in Iranian society. We are witnessing a very rapid trend in the growth of people's participation in this ritual during last decade. On the one hand, the government has turned its legitimacy into one of the key points of showing successes, and on the other hand, critics have turned it into an arena for criticism of political economy in Iran. Therefore, there is a deep challenge between different narratives in the analysis and evaluation of this phenomenon in the scientific and public media of the country.

In this article, an attempt has been made to find out the main patterns of representation of this event, taking into account the lived experiences and participation in various conferences and meetings about this ritual, as well as reading almost all the scientific articles published in Farsi and referring to the available book sources. For this purpose, the concepts of utopia, ideology and heterotopia have been used to be able to analyze the relationship between existing discourses and the power and order.

The results of this research are based on the fact that two main and dominant discourses can be recognized: the discourse that can be considered as the believers in the Islamic revolution and the government, tried to search for their own utopias and ideals in this event and Finally, with a kind of implicit simulation between that utopia and the claims of governmental discourse in Iran, use it as an ideology to legitimize this political order and show that this great ritual is exactly along the discourse of the Islamic Revolution. On the other hand, the critics, with an upside-down view, try to show all the political manipulations of the facts in the example of this ritual and criticize the fundamental inefficiencies of the political order through this ritual. For this reason, it has been used as a heterotopia to criticize the existing situation. However, other sub-discourses can be raised next to these two main discourses. But they have not had a special media representation.

Keywords: Arbaeen walk; Arbaeen pilgrimage; utopia, ideology, heterotopia; Iranian politics.

[1] Associate Professor, Institute for Social and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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