Articulating Persian identities between Iran and Israel: On nationality, diasporas, and lived ethnicities in online media

Abstract

This study focuses on nationality and ethnicity in the context of diaspora and media studies. By exploring the ways members of the Persian community in Israel (migrants from Iran to Israel) negotiate their ethnic Persian identification, I discuss the unique role online spaces play in the community's cultural, political, and social life. I draw on the case study to propose the term “Lived Ethnicity” as a digitally mediated identity construction process that works towards sociopolitical inclusion on two levels. First, as a user‐based participatory process, this type of self‐articulation pushes against cultural and political oppressions on a local–national level, within dominant oppressive discourses of nationality. Second, as a process performed via global online platforms, this type of self‐articulation becomes a unique catalyst for communal expressions that are based on trans‐national cultures and identifications. The study's novelty is its focus on the ways online platforms allow ethno‐national minorities to both subvert oppressive national structures and maintain them, all while taking part in global political and cultural discussions that were relatively closed to them thus far.