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Videos by Hajar Ghorbani

CDAS Conference 2018: The Politics of Death

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Papers by Hajar Ghorbani

Death Across Cultures, 2019

The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one ... more The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one and a half million graves. It is the main cemetery for a city of eight million residents. Due to the high volume of bodies arriving for burial everyday as well as the uniformity of Shia Islamic burial rituals, protocols have developed to implement an efficient division of labour and speed up the process. We study how this organizational and bureaucratic division of labour interacts with the community-oriented spirit of Shia Islamic burial rituals, the compromises that have to be, and the human impact. We also examine the implications of these developments for a number of existing theories regarding “modernity” and the “sequestration of death”.

Springer, 2019

The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one ... more The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one and a half million graves. It is the main cemetery for a city of eight million residents. Due to the high volume of bodies arriving for burial everyday as well as the uniformity of Shia Islamic burial rituals, protocols have developed to implement an efficient division of labour and speed up the process. We study how this organizational and bureaucratic division of labour interacts with the communityoriented spirit of Shia Islamic burial rituals, the compromises that have to be, and the human impact. We also examine the implications of these developments for a number of existing theories regarding "modernity" and the "sequestration of death".

Current Sociology , 2021

This article examines the case of COVID-19 deaths and grief in Iran in order to shed light on how... more This article examines the case of COVID-19 deaths and grief in Iran in order to shed light on how the biological, social and political 'risks of contagion' combine to impact mourning and grief. As a contagious biological agent, the novel coronavirus causes people to suffer, die and grieve alone. But this loneliness is deepened due to social stigma and political abandonment. Conceptually guided by Mary Douglas's work on the socio-cultural and political constructions of 'contagion', Judith Butler's notion of 'ungrievable lives' and Kenneth Doka's concept of 'disenfranchised grief', the authors of this article have undertaken a preliminary mixed-methods study that explores the possibility of a transnational, decolonial understanding of grief in a time of contagion.

For many cultures, music aligns with grief and funerary rites, helps with bereavement, forges con... more For many cultures, music aligns with grief and funerary rites, helps with bereavement, forges connections between life and death, pervades fond personal memories, and assists cultural expressions of society in the presence of death. Amidst and in the aftermath of tragedy and conflict, the ritual-symbolism of music not only helps express collective grief but can be a means of opposing the cause of death, whether through accident, disease or political agency. And what of death and its influence upon musical creativity? How does music help embody individual and collective experiences of death, mark loss, foster mutual bonds, help frame emotions of loss, memory, and potential renewal of life, life values, and hope? What kind of ritual language does music speak to the human heart? Here at our Centre we invite you join us to explore these and other issues in an open forum of scholars and practitioners. Through a wide range of contexts, cases, methods, and approaches, we hope to foster a mutual flourishing of experience and understanding. Music, Mortality, and Ritual is, then, a symposium which aims to illuminate our human complexity and diversity as people who live with death."

Since the moment someone dies and a dead body comes to an "unidentified" state, rites related to ... more Since the moment someone dies and a dead body comes to an "unidentified" state, rites related to death begins. Rites are a manner of human's action that emphasize symbolic actions. The rituals try to-through ritual experiences and in cooperation with artistic and aesthetic factorsemerge in the people's socio-cultural actions.

Current Sociology

This paper examines one of the most painful but seldom-discussed aspects of death in times of con... more This paper examines one of the most painful but seldom-discussed aspects of death in times of contagion: the silence, isolation, and loneliness that surrounds death and bereavement. Starting with the premise that funeral and mourning rituals play a major role in helping heal the social and psychological wounds of loss and grief (Geertz, 1973; Caccamo, 1988), and acknowledging that not all deaths are mourned equally (Butler, 2004), we study the case of COVID-19 deaths and grief in Iran in order to shed light on how the biological, social, and political "risks of contagion" combine to render mourning and grief lonely and silent. The risk of biological contagion necessitates curtailing public gatherings while social stigma and political suppression impose censor and silence. Therefore, our research is conceptually guided by Mary Douglas's (1966) work on the socio-cultural and political constructions of "contagion". In our recent history, these constructions have come into play during the so-called war on terror wherein some "precarious lives" have been rendered "ungrieveable" (Butler 2004) and in the context of early deaths from HIV/AIDS which led to "disenfranchised grief" (Doka, 1989). Building on these concepts, we plan to carry out a study of COVID-19 funerals and mourning in Iran by conducting interviews with survivors and reviewing policy and procedure documents for handling COVID-19 burials in order to examine the impact of socio-political and biological contagion on the production of disenfranchised and silenced grief. But Iran is also a place of creative everyday resistance (Bayat, 2013). We will examine how survivors responded to the political and public health restrictions, and what innovations were made to lessen the psychological impact of burial and bereavement in isolation.

Research journal of the Iranian Academy of Arts (Pazhouhesh Nameh-e Farhangestan-e Honar), 2020

The importance of studying the wide range of the sensory domains by anthropologists and the signs... more The importance of studying the wide range of the sensory domains by anthropologists and the signs of their vitality and the complexity of sensory symbolism among cultures has shown how important their study will be. This research is based on the concept of symbolism in Turner's theory, which emphasizes the role of colors, as a linguistic and symbolic element, in the reconstruction of societies. In this regard, this research with an interdisciplinary approach in the three fields of death studies, anthropology and art will describe the the representation of colors in the rituals of contemporary Iranian burial. The findings suggest that not only do we not encounter the same color in death rituals, but we also see that the order and weight of the colors in the rituals can be changed depending on social conditions and cultural characteristics. In other words, the colors in the rituals of death also change depending on several meanings, and this is the result of the choices of the culture and society that chooses the colors and makes them meaningful in their own cultural worldview.

Springer, 2019

The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one ... more The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one and a half million graves. It is the main cemetery for a city of eight million residents. Due to the high volume of bodies arriving for burial everyday as well as the uniformity of Shia Islamic burial rituals, protocols have developed to implement an efficient division of labour and speed up the process. We study how this organizational and bureaucratic division of labour interacts with the community-oriented spirit of Shia Islamic burial rituals, the compromises that have to be, and the human impact. We also examine the implications of these developments for a number of existing theories regarding "modernity" and the "sequestration of death". It is often argued that in contemporary Western societies both the process of dying itself as well as funeral rituals have become increasingly impersonal, bureaucra-tized, and individualized. In the words of Mellor and Shilling (1993), death is 'sequestered', meaning that it is separated and isolated from the normal, everyday experiences and hidden behind walls in hospitals and funeral homes. Whereas once people died at home and in the company of others, today they die in impersonal institutions such as hospitals and nursing homes. Whereas once the corpse was prepared and buried by relatives and acquaintances, it is now handled by professionals and strangers. 'Sequestration' is one version of a larger theory about death called the 'denial of death' thesis, according to which some (or all) societies deny and hide the existence of death. It is argued that bureaucratization and professionalization are merely expressions of this desire to deny or hide death. Kellehear (1984, p. 713) describes the denial of death as a "significant but fragmented" quasi-theory that "claims to be the central sociological background and stage for the bulk of our death related behaviour". According to Kellehear (1984), fear of death, medicalization of

People and Culture Journal /فصلنامه مردم و فرهنگ, 2014

CDAS Conference- England 2018

Shahadat or Martyrdom is distinguished from the phenomena of death in Iran under a sacred form by... more Shahadat or Martyrdom is distinguished from the phenomena of death in Iran under a sacred form by the nation state. In this paper, based on the fieldwork in the biggest and the most important martyrs' cemetery of Iran, Tehran, I will show how the nation state discriminated martyr and martyrdom from the other kinds of death and established a context to legitimate itself through three historical periods: Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran-Iraq War in 1980 and Post-war era from 1988 up to the present.

Quarterly of Social Studies and Research in Iran

Iran, as a society in the transitional stage, has undergone significant transformation, particula... more Iran, as a society in the transitional stage, has undergone significant transformation, particularly over the recent fifty years. Likewise, rituals around the death phenomenon(burial rituals) have recently experienced dramatic changes in Iran. Despite their importance and their implications for the cultural studies, there has been little scholarship that aims to investigate and explain these changes in Iran. More precisely, the previous research has been particularly inattentive to the effects of the modernity on the death rituals in Iran. This paper will try to scrutinize such effect. I have been conducting fieldwork (about two years), including participatory observations, in the Tehran's main cemetery, Behesht-e Zahra. In addition, this study utilized deep-interviews with people who have attended death ceremonies (Like Mobasher, Singer, gravedigger, clergy and corpse purifier). I find that while in the pre-modern Iran, the death rituals and practices were performed in a simple way and have been fulfilled mainly by the survivors, but they have been transformed to a complex process in more recent years, within which survivors have little control over. It is also shown that the modernity not only has influenced the culture of death but also has changed people's attitudes toward the concept of death in Iran.

فصلنامه علمی مطالعات و تحقیقات اجتماعی در ایران

بهشت‌زهرای تهران از مکان‌هایی است که در ارتباط با برگزاری آیین‌های تدفین در دورانِ توسعۀ جامعۀ ای... more بهشت‌زهرای تهران از مکان‌هایی است که در ارتباط با برگزاری آیین‌های تدفین در دورانِ توسعۀ جامعۀ ایرانی ساخته شده است. این مکان به‌واسطۀ مواجهه با نظامِ صنعتی‌ـ سرمایه‌داری و مدرنیتۀ شهری، در چند دهۀ اخیر، ماهیّتِ ابتداییِ خود را به یک سازمان تغییرداده است. سازمانی شدن موجب تغییراتی در برگزاری آیین‌های مرگ از زمانِ تبدیلِ بدن به جسد تا پایانِ خاک‌سپاری شده است. این پژوهش با تکیه بر مفاهیم بوروکراسیِ وبر و تقسیم کار اجتماعیِ دورکیم و با استفاده از روش‌های میدانی (مشاهده، مصاحبه) سعی کرده است که با فهمِ چنین تغییری، در مکانِ مرتبط با مرگ در شهرِ تهران، به شناخت و تجربۀ مدرنِ جامعۀ ایرانی در مواجهه با آیین‌های مرگ و همچنین تغییرات آن از دورانِ سنّتی به دورانِ معاصر دست یابد.
پس از توصیفاتِ مراحلِ انجامِ آیین‌های مرگ در مجموعۀ عروجیان، واقع در سازمانِ بهشت‌زهرا، نشان داده‌ایم که آیین‌های مرگ در دو الگویِ پیشامدرن و مدرن برگزار می‌شدند. موردِ اوّل مبتنی بر عقلانیّت ارزشی‌ــ یعنی ارزش‌های دینی و ثوابِ اُخروی‌ــ بود، امّا امروزه در الگوی مدرن برگزاریِ این آیین‌ها مبتنی بر عقلانیّت بوروکراسیِ سازمان بهشت زهرا است که تخصصی‌شدن و یک تقسیم اجتماعیِ کار را با خود به‌همراه داشته است. همچنین، برخلافِ گذشته، این سازمان است که تمامیِ آیین‌های وابسته به جسد را انجام می‌دهد و بازماندگان را از مشارکت سنّتی‌ـ ‌مذهبی در تدفین نزدیکان متوفی بازمی‌دارد، که خود منجر به انفصالِ کنش‌های فیزیکی‌‌ـ‌ ‌عاطفی در تجربه آيين‌هاي تدفين است. یعنی در فرآیندِ انجامِ آیین‌ها تکنولوژی و عقلانیّت به مثابه ابزاری ظهور کرده‌اند تا یک جسد هرچه زودتر و به‌شیوه‌ای آسان‌تر به خاک سپرده شود. تمامیِ این دگرگونی‌ها، حذف و اضافه‌شدن‌ها ناشی از ظاهرشدنِ یک تجربۀ نو در نظامِ شهریِ مدرنِ تهران است که از آن می‌توان با نامِ بوروکراتیک‌شدنِ پدیدۀ تدفین نام برد. این مسأله منجر به شکل‌گیری تغییراتِ فرهنگی در تجربه شده و درک جدیدی از تدفین و مسأله متوفی و مرگ را به همراه داشته است.

DAKAM Conference -Istanbul 2013 , Oct 23, 2013

Understanding the ceremonies and rituals of death can play a major role in analyzing the cultural... more Understanding the ceremonies and rituals of death can play a major role in analyzing the cultural and social system. One of the burial rituals in Iranian-Shiite cultures is marking signs on gravestones. These signs can represent the occupation, decorative, or religious characteristics of a deceased person and their sociocultural backgrounds. The comb is one such sign that can be found alongside other religious symbols on these gravestones. In this study, we seek to comprehend the cultural and religious significance of this sign in the Takhte-Fulad cemetery in Isfahan, Iran, by employing a semiotic approach.
Observation and photography were conducted in the cemetery to better understand this symbol. The semiotic system of the gravestones was categorized into two types: text, which pertains to religious principles and the biography of the deceased person, and images, which depict gender and describe the individual in the context of an illiterate and oral culture among common people. The presence of the comb, together with other religious visual symbols in accordance with Islamic traditions and belief systems, signifies a male gender association. However, it's worth noting that we observed only two-headed combs on the gravestones, representing a female gender symbol. We also identified several significant binary oppositions, including male/female, intrinsic/extrinsic, private/public, socio-economic occupation/housekeeping, and cultural-religious/natural elements, forming the basis of the visual sign system on gravestones to convey the religious and cultural representation of gender.

Conference Presentations by Hajar Ghorbani

CDAS Conference 2022: Death and Institutions, 2022

For many cultures, music aligns with grief and funerary rites, helps with bereavement, forges con... more For many cultures, music aligns with grief and funerary rites, helps with bereavement, forges connections between life and death, pervades fond personal memories, and assists cultural expressions of society in the presence of death. Amidst and in the aftermath of tragedy and conflict, the ritual-symbolism of music not only helps express collective grief but can be a means of opposing the cause of death, whether through accident, disease or political agency. And what of death and its influence upon musical creativity? How does music help embody individual and collective experiences of death, mark loss, foster mutual bonds, help frame emotions of loss, memory, and potential renewal of life, life values, and hope? What kind of ritual language does music speak to the human heart? Here at our Centre we invite you join us to explore these and other issues in an open forum of scholars and practitioners. Through a wide range of contexts, cases, methods, and approaches, we hope to foster a mutual flourishing of experience and understanding. Music, Mortality, and Ritual is, then, a symposium which aims to illuminate our human complexity and diversity as people who live with death."

CDAS Conference- England 2018

Shahadat or Martyrdom is distinguished from the phenomena of death in Iran under a sacred form by... more Shahadat or Martyrdom is distinguished from the phenomena of death in Iran under a sacred form by the nation state. In this paper, based on the fieldwork in the biggest and the most important martyrs’ cemetery of Iran, Tehran, I will show how the nation state discriminated martyr and martyrdom from the other kinds of death and established a context to legitimate itself through three historical periods: Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran- Iraq War in 1980 and Post-war era from 1988 up to the present.
In the conclusion it will be shown that not only Karbala event or, as Fischer have stated, Karbala paradigm in Shia culture have had an important role in constructing these two concepts and legitimizing other nation states in the history of Irano-Shiite culture but also it have had a very important function in legitimizing nation state in the contemporary Iran.
In addition, we will witness strengthening of these concepts to the extent that it caused synchronization of martyrs’ funeral with political and religious conflicts, celebration of memorial days and martyrs commemorations, symbolic funerals and recently caused creation of new burial places.

CDAS Confernce- England 2018, 2018

Shahadat or Martyrdom is distinguished from the phenomena of death in Iran under a sacred form by... more Shahadat or Martyrdom is distinguished from the phenomena of death in Iran under a sacred form by the nation state. In this paper, based on the fieldwork in the biggest and the most important martyrs' cemetery of Iran, Tehran, I will show how the nation state discriminated martyr and martyrdom from the other kinds of death and established a context to legitimate itself through three historical periods: Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran-Iraq War in 1980 and Postwar era from 1988 up to the present. In the conclusion it will be shown that not only Karbala event or, as Fischer have stated, Karbala paradigm in Shia culture have had an important role in constructing these two concepts and legitimizing other nation states in the history of Irano-Shiite culture but also it have had a very important function in legitimizing nation state in the contemporary Iran. In addition, we will witness strengthening of these concepts to the extent that it caused synchronization of martyrs' funeral with political and religious conflicts, celebration of memorial days and martyrs commemorations, symbolic funerals and recently caused creation of new burial places.

GIS Conference-Paris 2017

Performance Event- Tehran/Paris 2018

Shahadat or martyrdom, is represented in the Iranian public space under a so sacred form that it ... more Shahadat or martyrdom, is represented in the Iranian public space under a so sacred form that it attempts to exclude or crush all other voices and representations on this subject. This also applies in the case of war (1980-1988) itself, and all its representations that have remained exclusively a grip of ideology. In this presentation we will show how micro artistic performances, here in the form of street theater, around the sacred death and war, find their places in the macro structure of power and governmental discourse and that of politicized religion, to build a new meaning for martyrdom.

CDAS Conference 2018: The Politics of Death

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Death Across Cultures, 2019

The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one ... more The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one and a half million graves. It is the main cemetery for a city of eight million residents. Due to the high volume of bodies arriving for burial everyday as well as the uniformity of Shia Islamic burial rituals, protocols have developed to implement an efficient division of labour and speed up the process. We study how this organizational and bureaucratic division of labour interacts with the community-oriented spirit of Shia Islamic burial rituals, the compromises that have to be, and the human impact. We also examine the implications of these developments for a number of existing theories regarding “modernity” and the “sequestration of death”.

Springer, 2019

The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one ... more The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one and a half million graves. It is the main cemetery for a city of eight million residents. Due to the high volume of bodies arriving for burial everyday as well as the uniformity of Shia Islamic burial rituals, protocols have developed to implement an efficient division of labour and speed up the process. We study how this organizational and bureaucratic division of labour interacts with the communityoriented spirit of Shia Islamic burial rituals, the compromises that have to be, and the human impact. We also examine the implications of these developments for a number of existing theories regarding "modernity" and the "sequestration of death".

Current Sociology , 2021

This article examines the case of COVID-19 deaths and grief in Iran in order to shed light on how... more This article examines the case of COVID-19 deaths and grief in Iran in order to shed light on how the biological, social and political 'risks of contagion' combine to impact mourning and grief. As a contagious biological agent, the novel coronavirus causes people to suffer, die and grieve alone. But this loneliness is deepened due to social stigma and political abandonment. Conceptually guided by Mary Douglas's work on the socio-cultural and political constructions of 'contagion', Judith Butler's notion of 'ungrievable lives' and Kenneth Doka's concept of 'disenfranchised grief', the authors of this article have undertaken a preliminary mixed-methods study that explores the possibility of a transnational, decolonial understanding of grief in a time of contagion.

For many cultures, music aligns with grief and funerary rites, helps with bereavement, forges con... more For many cultures, music aligns with grief and funerary rites, helps with bereavement, forges connections between life and death, pervades fond personal memories, and assists cultural expressions of society in the presence of death. Amidst and in the aftermath of tragedy and conflict, the ritual-symbolism of music not only helps express collective grief but can be a means of opposing the cause of death, whether through accident, disease or political agency. And what of death and its influence upon musical creativity? How does music help embody individual and collective experiences of death, mark loss, foster mutual bonds, help frame emotions of loss, memory, and potential renewal of life, life values, and hope? What kind of ritual language does music speak to the human heart? Here at our Centre we invite you join us to explore these and other issues in an open forum of scholars and practitioners. Through a wide range of contexts, cases, methods, and approaches, we hope to foster a mutual flourishing of experience and understanding. Music, Mortality, and Ritual is, then, a symposium which aims to illuminate our human complexity and diversity as people who live with death."

Since the moment someone dies and a dead body comes to an "unidentified" state, rites related to ... more Since the moment someone dies and a dead body comes to an "unidentified" state, rites related to death begins. Rites are a manner of human's action that emphasize symbolic actions. The rituals try to-through ritual experiences and in cooperation with artistic and aesthetic factorsemerge in the people's socio-cultural actions.

Current Sociology

This paper examines one of the most painful but seldom-discussed aspects of death in times of con... more This paper examines one of the most painful but seldom-discussed aspects of death in times of contagion: the silence, isolation, and loneliness that surrounds death and bereavement. Starting with the premise that funeral and mourning rituals play a major role in helping heal the social and psychological wounds of loss and grief (Geertz, 1973; Caccamo, 1988), and acknowledging that not all deaths are mourned equally (Butler, 2004), we study the case of COVID-19 deaths and grief in Iran in order to shed light on how the biological, social, and political "risks of contagion" combine to render mourning and grief lonely and silent. The risk of biological contagion necessitates curtailing public gatherings while social stigma and political suppression impose censor and silence. Therefore, our research is conceptually guided by Mary Douglas's (1966) work on the socio-cultural and political constructions of "contagion". In our recent history, these constructions have come into play during the so-called war on terror wherein some "precarious lives" have been rendered "ungrieveable" (Butler 2004) and in the context of early deaths from HIV/AIDS which led to "disenfranchised grief" (Doka, 1989). Building on these concepts, we plan to carry out a study of COVID-19 funerals and mourning in Iran by conducting interviews with survivors and reviewing policy and procedure documents for handling COVID-19 burials in order to examine the impact of socio-political and biological contagion on the production of disenfranchised and silenced grief. But Iran is also a place of creative everyday resistance (Bayat, 2013). We will examine how survivors responded to the political and public health restrictions, and what innovations were made to lessen the psychological impact of burial and bereavement in isolation.

Research journal of the Iranian Academy of Arts (Pazhouhesh Nameh-e Farhangestan-e Honar), 2020

The importance of studying the wide range of the sensory domains by anthropologists and the signs... more The importance of studying the wide range of the sensory domains by anthropologists and the signs of their vitality and the complexity of sensory symbolism among cultures has shown how important their study will be. This research is based on the concept of symbolism in Turner's theory, which emphasizes the role of colors, as a linguistic and symbolic element, in the reconstruction of societies. In this regard, this research with an interdisciplinary approach in the three fields of death studies, anthropology and art will describe the the representation of colors in the rituals of contemporary Iranian burial. The findings suggest that not only do we not encounter the same color in death rituals, but we also see that the order and weight of the colors in the rituals can be changed depending on social conditions and cultural characteristics. In other words, the colors in the rituals of death also change depending on several meanings, and this is the result of the choices of the culture and society that chooses the colors and makes them meaningful in their own cultural worldview.

Springer, 2019

The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one ... more The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one and a half million graves. It is the main cemetery for a city of eight million residents. Due to the high volume of bodies arriving for burial everyday as well as the uniformity of Shia Islamic burial rituals, protocols have developed to implement an efficient division of labour and speed up the process. We study how this organizational and bureaucratic division of labour interacts with the community-oriented spirit of Shia Islamic burial rituals, the compromises that have to be, and the human impact. We also examine the implications of these developments for a number of existing theories regarding "modernity" and the "sequestration of death". It is often argued that in contemporary Western societies both the process of dying itself as well as funeral rituals have become increasingly impersonal, bureaucra-tized, and individualized. In the words of Mellor and Shilling (1993), death is 'sequestered', meaning that it is separated and isolated from the normal, everyday experiences and hidden behind walls in hospitals and funeral homes. Whereas once people died at home and in the company of others, today they die in impersonal institutions such as hospitals and nursing homes. Whereas once the corpse was prepared and buried by relatives and acquaintances, it is now handled by professionals and strangers. 'Sequestration' is one version of a larger theory about death called the 'denial of death' thesis, according to which some (or all) societies deny and hide the existence of death. It is argued that bureaucratization and professionalization are merely expressions of this desire to deny or hide death. Kellehear (1984, p. 713) describes the denial of death as a "significant but fragmented" quasi-theory that "claims to be the central sociological background and stage for the bulk of our death related behaviour". According to Kellehear (1984), fear of death, medicalization of

People and Culture Journal /فصلنامه مردم و فرهنگ, 2014

CDAS Conference- England 2018

Shahadat or Martyrdom is distinguished from the phenomena of death in Iran under a sacred form by... more Shahadat or Martyrdom is distinguished from the phenomena of death in Iran under a sacred form by the nation state. In this paper, based on the fieldwork in the biggest and the most important martyrs' cemetery of Iran, Tehran, I will show how the nation state discriminated martyr and martyrdom from the other kinds of death and established a context to legitimate itself through three historical periods: Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran-Iraq War in 1980 and Post-war era from 1988 up to the present.

Quarterly of Social Studies and Research in Iran

Iran, as a society in the transitional stage, has undergone significant transformation, particula... more Iran, as a society in the transitional stage, has undergone significant transformation, particularly over the recent fifty years. Likewise, rituals around the death phenomenon(burial rituals) have recently experienced dramatic changes in Iran. Despite their importance and their implications for the cultural studies, there has been little scholarship that aims to investigate and explain these changes in Iran. More precisely, the previous research has been particularly inattentive to the effects of the modernity on the death rituals in Iran. This paper will try to scrutinize such effect. I have been conducting fieldwork (about two years), including participatory observations, in the Tehran's main cemetery, Behesht-e Zahra. In addition, this study utilized deep-interviews with people who have attended death ceremonies (Like Mobasher, Singer, gravedigger, clergy and corpse purifier). I find that while in the pre-modern Iran, the death rituals and practices were performed in a simple way and have been fulfilled mainly by the survivors, but they have been transformed to a complex process in more recent years, within which survivors have little control over. It is also shown that the modernity not only has influenced the culture of death but also has changed people's attitudes toward the concept of death in Iran.

فصلنامه علمی مطالعات و تحقیقات اجتماعی در ایران

بهشت‌زهرای تهران از مکان‌هایی است که در ارتباط با برگزاری آیین‌های تدفین در دورانِ توسعۀ جامعۀ ای... more بهشت‌زهرای تهران از مکان‌هایی است که در ارتباط با برگزاری آیین‌های تدفین در دورانِ توسعۀ جامعۀ ایرانی ساخته شده است. این مکان به‌واسطۀ مواجهه با نظامِ صنعتی‌ـ سرمایه‌داری و مدرنیتۀ شهری، در چند دهۀ اخیر، ماهیّتِ ابتداییِ خود را به یک سازمان تغییرداده است. سازمانی شدن موجب تغییراتی در برگزاری آیین‌های مرگ از زمانِ تبدیلِ بدن به جسد تا پایانِ خاک‌سپاری شده است. این پژوهش با تکیه بر مفاهیم بوروکراسیِ وبر و تقسیم کار اجتماعیِ دورکیم و با استفاده از روش‌های میدانی (مشاهده، مصاحبه) سعی کرده است که با فهمِ چنین تغییری، در مکانِ مرتبط با مرگ در شهرِ تهران، به شناخت و تجربۀ مدرنِ جامعۀ ایرانی در مواجهه با آیین‌های مرگ و همچنین تغییرات آن از دورانِ سنّتی به دورانِ معاصر دست یابد.
پس از توصیفاتِ مراحلِ انجامِ آیین‌های مرگ در مجموعۀ عروجیان، واقع در سازمانِ بهشت‌زهرا، نشان داده‌ایم که آیین‌های مرگ در دو الگویِ پیشامدرن و مدرن برگزار می‌شدند. موردِ اوّل مبتنی بر عقلانیّت ارزشی‌ــ یعنی ارزش‌های دینی و ثوابِ اُخروی‌ــ بود، امّا امروزه در الگوی مدرن برگزاریِ این آیین‌ها مبتنی بر عقلانیّت بوروکراسیِ سازمان بهشت زهرا است که تخصصی‌شدن و یک تقسیم اجتماعیِ کار را با خود به‌همراه داشته است. همچنین، برخلافِ گذشته، این سازمان است که تمامیِ آیین‌های وابسته به جسد را انجام می‌دهد و بازماندگان را از مشارکت سنّتی‌ـ ‌مذهبی در تدفین نزدیکان متوفی بازمی‌دارد، که خود منجر به انفصالِ کنش‌های فیزیکی‌‌ـ‌ ‌عاطفی در تجربه آيين‌هاي تدفين است. یعنی در فرآیندِ انجامِ آیین‌ها تکنولوژی و عقلانیّت به مثابه ابزاری ظهور کرده‌اند تا یک جسد هرچه زودتر و به‌شیوه‌ای آسان‌تر به خاک سپرده شود. تمامیِ این دگرگونی‌ها، حذف و اضافه‌شدن‌ها ناشی از ظاهرشدنِ یک تجربۀ نو در نظامِ شهریِ مدرنِ تهران است که از آن می‌توان با نامِ بوروکراتیک‌شدنِ پدیدۀ تدفین نام برد. این مسأله منجر به شکل‌گیری تغییراتِ فرهنگی در تجربه شده و درک جدیدی از تدفین و مسأله متوفی و مرگ را به همراه داشته است.

DAKAM Conference -Istanbul 2013 , Oct 23, 2013

Understanding the ceremonies and rituals of death can play a major role in analyzing the cultural... more Understanding the ceremonies and rituals of death can play a major role in analyzing the cultural and social system. One of the burial rituals in Iranian-Shiite cultures is marking signs on gravestones. These signs can represent the occupation, decorative, or religious characteristics of a deceased person and their sociocultural backgrounds. The comb is one such sign that can be found alongside other religious symbols on these gravestones. In this study, we seek to comprehend the cultural and religious significance of this sign in the Takhte-Fulad cemetery in Isfahan, Iran, by employing a semiotic approach.
Observation and photography were conducted in the cemetery to better understand this symbol. The semiotic system of the gravestones was categorized into two types: text, which pertains to religious principles and the biography of the deceased person, and images, which depict gender and describe the individual in the context of an illiterate and oral culture among common people. The presence of the comb, together with other religious visual symbols in accordance with Islamic traditions and belief systems, signifies a male gender association. However, it's worth noting that we observed only two-headed combs on the gravestones, representing a female gender symbol. We also identified several significant binary oppositions, including male/female, intrinsic/extrinsic, private/public, socio-economic occupation/housekeeping, and cultural-religious/natural elements, forming the basis of the visual sign system on gravestones to convey the religious and cultural representation of gender.

CDAS Conference 2022: Death and Institutions, 2022

For many cultures, music aligns with grief and funerary rites, helps with bereavement, forges con... more For many cultures, music aligns with grief and funerary rites, helps with bereavement, forges connections between life and death, pervades fond personal memories, and assists cultural expressions of society in the presence of death. Amidst and in the aftermath of tragedy and conflict, the ritual-symbolism of music not only helps express collective grief but can be a means of opposing the cause of death, whether through accident, disease or political agency. And what of death and its influence upon musical creativity? How does music help embody individual and collective experiences of death, mark loss, foster mutual bonds, help frame emotions of loss, memory, and potential renewal of life, life values, and hope? What kind of ritual language does music speak to the human heart? Here at our Centre we invite you join us to explore these and other issues in an open forum of scholars and practitioners. Through a wide range of contexts, cases, methods, and approaches, we hope to foster a mutual flourishing of experience and understanding. Music, Mortality, and Ritual is, then, a symposium which aims to illuminate our human complexity and diversity as people who live with death."

CDAS Conference- England 2018

Shahadat or Martyrdom is distinguished from the phenomena of death in Iran under a sacred form by... more Shahadat or Martyrdom is distinguished from the phenomena of death in Iran under a sacred form by the nation state. In this paper, based on the fieldwork in the biggest and the most important martyrs’ cemetery of Iran, Tehran, I will show how the nation state discriminated martyr and martyrdom from the other kinds of death and established a context to legitimate itself through three historical periods: Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran- Iraq War in 1980 and Post-war era from 1988 up to the present.
In the conclusion it will be shown that not only Karbala event or, as Fischer have stated, Karbala paradigm in Shia culture have had an important role in constructing these two concepts and legitimizing other nation states in the history of Irano-Shiite culture but also it have had a very important function in legitimizing nation state in the contemporary Iran.
In addition, we will witness strengthening of these concepts to the extent that it caused synchronization of martyrs’ funeral with political and religious conflicts, celebration of memorial days and martyrs commemorations, symbolic funerals and recently caused creation of new burial places.

CDAS Confernce- England 2018, 2018

Shahadat or Martyrdom is distinguished from the phenomena of death in Iran under a sacred form by... more Shahadat or Martyrdom is distinguished from the phenomena of death in Iran under a sacred form by the nation state. In this paper, based on the fieldwork in the biggest and the most important martyrs' cemetery of Iran, Tehran, I will show how the nation state discriminated martyr and martyrdom from the other kinds of death and established a context to legitimate itself through three historical periods: Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran-Iraq War in 1980 and Postwar era from 1988 up to the present. In the conclusion it will be shown that not only Karbala event or, as Fischer have stated, Karbala paradigm in Shia culture have had an important role in constructing these two concepts and legitimizing other nation states in the history of Irano-Shiite culture but also it have had a very important function in legitimizing nation state in the contemporary Iran. In addition, we will witness strengthening of these concepts to the extent that it caused synchronization of martyrs' funeral with political and religious conflicts, celebration of memorial days and martyrs commemorations, symbolic funerals and recently caused creation of new burial places.

GIS Conference-Paris 2017

Performance Event- Tehran/Paris 2018

Shahadat or martyrdom, is represented in the Iranian public space under a so sacred form that it ... more Shahadat or martyrdom, is represented in the Iranian public space under a so sacred form that it attempts to exclude or crush all other voices and representations on this subject. This also applies in the case of war (1980-1988) itself, and all its representations that have remained exclusively a grip of ideology. In this presentation we will show how micro artistic performances, here in the form of street theater, around the sacred death and war, find their places in the macro structure of power and governmental discourse and that of politicized religion, to build a new meaning for martyrdom.

Martyrdom, as a kind of death, has made itself distinct from death phenomenon in the Iran-o-Shiit... more Martyrdom, as a kind of death, has made itself distinct from death phenomenon in the Iran-o-Shiite Culture. Not only today, in the contemporary period, we witness a very dominant role of concepts of " martyrdom " and " martyr " , but also, we can trace the root of construction of these concepts in the history of Shias, from the early Islamic era. In this work, my main problem is to analyze the visual elements of organization-cemetery of Behesht-e-Zahra of Tehran in order to understand " how agents understand the concept of 'martyr' and 'martyrdom' in an interaction with visual elements. The field of research is cemetery of Behesht-e-Zahra of Tehran. Method is ethnographical and data gathered through interview, observation, participant observation and photography. Here, I used some theoretical concepts such as " Sacrifice " from Durkheim and Hubert and Mauss, " Social Construction of Reality " from Berger and Lukmann, and " Suffering " From Rahmani. We have demonstrated that Paradigm of Karbala and Martyrdom of Imam Huseyn, not only have had the most important role and effect in the construction of these two concepts, but also this is exactly those values of Paradigm of Karbala that are representing in the visual elements of the contemporary cemetery; and this is exactly through these visual elements and also through the sacred place of the cemetery of martyrs that agents who are there find the meaning of " martyrdom " and " martyr " and find them distinguished from the other dead in the cemetery. Also, beside this distinction, we witness that these two concepts have been highlighted to the great extent, which caused some results: synchronism of funeral of martyrs with political and religious events, holding of commemorations for martyrs, symbolic funerals of martyrs, and emergence of new places of martyrs' burial. In addition, our study of cultural scene, rituals and events in the martyrs' cemetery, shows that we can talk about four definitions from martyr that " Excepting the Martyr " is dominant in all of the definitions. Finally, this thesis shows that we can no longer talk about a perception from " martyrdom " and " martyr " and we should say that agents with various cultural scenes, although with some similarities, are understanding " martyrdom " and " martyr " in various ways and expecting these concepts from the other dead and the other cemetery atmosphere.

Title: Decolonizing Death Studies Co-Editors: Dr Panagiotis Pentaris, Dr Stacey Pitsillides & Ha... more Title: Decolonizing Death Studies
Co-Editors: Dr Panagiotis Pentaris, Dr Stacey Pitsillides & Hajar Ghorbani

Overview
Social and cultural factors can strongly influence how we approach death and dying, including attitudes towards death, rituals and practices surrounding death, and end-of-life care. The World Health Organization notes that understanding these factors is important for improving the quality of life and care for individuals facing life-limiting illnesses (WHO, 2021).
Hamilton et al. (2022) note that current knowledge in death studies tends to be influenced by Western views, conforming identities, specific disciplines, the English language, and a certain generation, which can limit its application to policy and practice. The authors argue that decolonising death studies requires exploring the nature of knowledge that underpins claimed expertise in this area, which has universal implications for policies, practices, theory, and research. This is not a new argument, but one which was noted in 1978 by Lofland, critiquing the happy death movement’s lack of diversity, claiming that its proponents were predominantly heteronormative, white and affluent. More contemporary research groups in death studies, like the Queer Death Studies Network (2016) and the Collective for Radical Death Studies, address this by collecting a wider body of literature in the field of death studies.
The increasing diversity and plurality of populations around the world necessitates further attention to diversifying evidence and knowledge to ensure that it effectively serves its beneficiaries (Mokhov and Pentaris, 2022). However, there is potential risk for re-colonising knowledge in this area due to the persistence of English-speaking, Western, and conforming expertise in the field that may or may not understand the connected histories of colonialism. To address this, networks of knowledge and expertise that challenge these limitations and seek to avoid the risk of re-colonisation to broaden the case of knowledge and key texts used by death studies researchers are needed. Such networks may be physical, contextual or digital, but they always lead to collective discourses that break free from the colonisation of death studies.

Anthropology, 2021

Social Studies of Death in Iran: Death and Dying in Iranian culture The editor received full fin... more Social Studies of Death in Iran: Death and Dying in Iranian culture
The editor received full financial support from Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery for the publication of the book
Editor: Hajar Ghorbani
Publication: Anthropology
Location: Tehran, Iran
Language: Persian
Contents:
Introduction
Authors Biography
Death an Interdisciplinary Study
Chapter1
Social History of Death in Iran- Saeed Tavoosi Masroor
Death and Organizing its Space- Arash Heidari
Urban Cemeteries: Past and Present- Kaveh Mansoori
Chapter 2
Reversing the Meaning of Death- Reza Mahoozi
Religion, Death, and City- Mohammadreza Pouyafar
Death in the Pandemic- Reza Taslimitehrani
Death, Inheritance, and Equality- Mojtaba Vaezi and Hojjat Jaleh
Chapter 3
Disease, Aging, and Death in the Present Society- Nasser Fakouhi
Euthanasia in the Age of Capitalism
Body and Death After the Post Revolution- Fatemeh Sayyarpour
The Last Station- Gholam Hossein Motamedi
Hospitals and the Meaning of Death- Mohammad Zeinali-Onari
Chapter 4
A New Meaning of Martyrdom- Eric Butel
Martyr, Martyrdom and the Nation-State- Hajar Ghorbani
Death in the Post Revolutionary Calendar- Zohreh Soroush Far
The Secret of Graves- Alireza Kamari
Unification of Graves of the Iran-Iraq war martyrs- Mohsenhesam Mazaheri
Chapter 5
Death in Persian Paintings- Mohammadreza Moridi
Themes of Death in Contemporary Iranian Photo-Related Art-Practices- Agnes Rameder
Other Houses- Naser Fakouhi and Mehrdad Oskui
Glazing of a Cemetery- Mehdi Yazdani Khorram
Chapter5
A cemetery is not a silent space- Mohammad Reza Haeri
The Other Place: The Cemetery of Tehran- Sepideh Parsa Pajouh
Death and the Iranian Modernity- Zohreh Bayatrizi and Hajar Ghorbani
Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra a Live Society- Jabbar Rahmani
The Risk of Management, The Risk of Death- Zohreh Bayatrizi and Hajar Ghorbani

Springer, 2019

The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the world, containing one ... more The Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, Iran, is one of the largest in the
world, containing one and a half million graves. It is the main cemetery for a city of eight million residents. Due to the high volume of bodies arriving for burial everyday as well as the uniformity of Shia Islamic burial rituals, protocols have developed to implement an efficient division of labour and speed up the process. We study how this organizational and bureaucratic division of labour interacts with the communityoriented
spirit of Shia Islamic burial rituals, the compromises that have to be, and the human impact. We also examine the implications of these developments for a number of existing theories regarding “modernity” and the “sequestration of death”.

Research Center For Culture, Art And Communications

This book is a collection of Tony Walter's researches about Death and Dying in modern age.

Anthropology Society of Iran - Tehran 2020