Fourteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Inspired by Julia Kersiteva and Mikhal Bakhtin, the conceptual term of inter-rituality serves as a model for the perception of Iranian rituals’ meaning and functions in Iran’s contemporary era. Inter-rituality consists of a state in which identity is created through the polyphonic and dialogical meaning of rituals. Applying such an interpretation offers a means by which the rituals’ dynamic forms and contents can be examined in a given country over the course of recent decades both in verbal and behavioral forms. On one hand, cultural diversities, which are embedded in the diachronic and synchronic elements that exist in Iranian informal societies and communities cultures and sub-cultures, can be taken as the source of Iranian inter-rituality. On the other hand, the agencies of meaning silenced groups such as women and youth comprise the key social actors who create meaning and discourses, and therein have polyphonic and dialogic implications for and functions within Iranian rituals. This article firstly atomizes and synchronizes the ethnographic case of the Iranian fire feast, Nourouz and Moharam rituals, through interviews with ritual participants and celebrants. It then illustrates how inter-rituality emerges as a polyphonic form, a key feature of identity in contemporary Iran. Under this circumstance and over the course of history, this trend has resisted any force that has tried to apply monophonic meanings to rituals and to reduce Iranian culture to a formal form without diversity and agency. Methods applied to gather the ethnographic data in this study include interviews with key-actors and participant observation.