Locating Iranian Diasporas in Fifty Years of Academic Discourse: Critical Review of Acculturation Theory

Abstract: Over the past five decades, Iran has experienced a massive international emigration of its citizens. Consequently, Iranian diasporas formed in several Western countries as their main destinations. Diverse academic research in gender studies, sociology of the family, and migration has taken an acculturation approach to explaining the struggles of Iranians living abroad. This article aims to discuss the analytical issues that are involved in taking the acculturation framework and the binary view of either traditional/modern or religious/secular when studying Iranian diasporas. The study argues that many publications in the field have contributed to the hegemonic discourse of Iranian migrants as being problematic and whose ‘culture’ does not fit ‘Western modernity’. Such an analytical departure bypasses the intersecting structural inequalities that Iranian diasporas have encountered in Western societies. The article suggests that focusing on the politics of belonging and exclusion is a way out of viewing culture as a given and fixed entity with clear-cut boundaries.

their post-migration life, acculturation is one of the theoretical frameworks that has been predominantly employed by scholars. 3Studies on Iranian diasporas over the past five decades are not an exception to such an analytical departure and have heavily employed acculturation theory in the fields of sociology and social psychology and in interdisciplinary fields, such as gender and ethnic studies. 4This paper provides a critical overview of the ways in which acculturation theory is implemented in scholarship when addressing this group of people in Western countries.Due to the implementation of this theory in a vast body of literature on the Iranian diaspora, we analyzed a sample of 42 scientific publications in the field, including books, articles, and dissertations.A critical discourse analysis is employed to uncover the relation between knowledge and power. 5We look for similarities in assumptions across the literature and critically assess the dominant ideological perspective of the acculturation theory.Discourse analysis is a powerful tool in literature review that enables us to reveal how the colonial gaze of the acculturation approach has contributed to the racialized order and discourse about Iranian diasporas. 6Although the review critically analyzes the literature adopting an acculturation perspective, none of the publications are individually contested.The aim is to identify the limitations of the dominant theory at large.The significance of this paper lies in the disclosure of how academic production in the field can affect the politics and policies of migration.
The modern usage of the term acculturation goes back to the nineteenth century through which the cultures of indigenous groups were labeled as 'uncivilized' and in need of change to the cultures of the conquering colonisers. 7The classical definition of the term acculturation refers to 'those phenomena that result when groups of individuals, having different cultures, come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups'. 8Recent scholarship has refined and conceptualized the acculturation process at the micro, meso, and macro levels, emphasizing cultural plurality and its mutual influences. 9Berry suggests four types of acculturation; assimilation (a non-dominant group has no interest in keeping their own culture and embraces interacting with other cultures), separation (individuals attempt to keep their own culture and do not interact with other cultures), integration (individuals try to maintain elements of their own culture while taking part in a larger social setting and its culture), and marginalization (there is no interest in or possibility of communicating with any culture for a cultural change). 10Berry also emphasizes that all these forms are conditioned by many factors, such as imposed policies, prejudices, and ethnic attitudes 11 .It is claimed that cultural changes mostly happen in minority cultures that encounter a majority culture (Berry 1990). 12Thus, acculturation theory is mainly used to understand the ways in which minorities relate to their own cultural heritage and to the mainstream culture of their destination society (Berry 2006). 13efore diving into the discussion, it is essential to clarify our implementation of the term 'diaspora'.Acknowledging the complexity of the term and its overlap with transnationalism, the term 'Iranian diasporas' in this paper refers to the people of Iran who have been spread around the world over the last fifty years. 14The term is used in the plural form to acknowledge the diversity within the Iranian diasporas.By analyzing the literature on Iranian diasporas that employs the acculturation approach, this article, firstly, shows the ways in which the term 'culture' has been treated as a given entity associated with a series of dichotomies.Secondly, we discuss the limitations of the acculturation approach for uncovering intersecting power dynamics and social relations in diasporic life.Lastly, the study concludes by describing how academic scholarship has contributed to racialized discourses about Iranian diasporas.

Dualistic View on Cultural Values
Navigating through the literature, it immediately becomes evident that gendered relations are viewed as one of the main cultural markers of Iranians in many studies on Iranian diasporas. 15The main assumption of this body of literature is that Iranian culture essentially carries patriarchal baggage while Western values are presented as gender-equal.From this perspective, Iranian women who migrate become familiar with their rights when encountering Western societies, and due to their accessibility to the labor market, they become less socio-economically dependent on their husbands, which results in a consequent separation from patriarchal control. 16A study connects the high percentage of divorce among Iranian partners in Sweden with cultural differences and the ways in which migration to Sweden provides women with a better opportunity for education and employment. 17Surprisingly, the author notes that half of the women in the study were either employed in the white-collar sector or were self-employed prior to migration.
Undermining the existence of patriarchal practices in the Western context and minimizing the struggles of Iranian women to the private realm of family feeds into racialized order constructing the category of Iranian man as traditional and a threat to gender equality.Khosravi's study shows that the Iranian men in Sweden who continuously prove themselves as respectable and deserving are perceived as exceptional and as 'integrated' into the Swedish value system. 18While the traits of 'modern, egalitarian, sexy, masculine' are attached to the bodies of white Swedish men, Iranian men are constructed as patriarchal and 'primitive'. 19Sadeghi explains that the experience of racism among Iranians in Germany is tied to the discourse of cultural differences, including gendered values that construct darkskinned or 'Arab-looking' men as uncivilized and sexually violent. 20Through this racialization process, (un)desirable masculine bodies are constructed.
Obviously, the undermining of gender inequality that is experienced by Iranian women prior to migration is a big mistake.However, the binary view on gendered values does not only feed into the experiences of racism by Iranian men in the Western context, but it is also instrumentalized in furthering discrimination against racialized women. 21Political discourses in Europe represent migrant (Muslim) women as passive victims who need to be saved.The mission of 'saving' Muslim women from Muslim men is instrumentalized to guide women to the least attractive and low-paid labor markets, particularly the sector that manages the care of the aged. 22Iranian women are not an exception to such representations as they have a fair chance to be un(der)employed. 23While gendered inequalities are strongly tied to cultural disadvantages, 16 Rashidian,et al.,'My Culture Haunts Me No Matter Where I Go'. 17Mehrdad Darvishpour (2002)  studies that took an acculturation approach have paid little attention to the ways in which inequalities are experienced by gendered bodies and how they are shaped by the racialization and policies of integration in many Western countries. 24The ways in which the slogan of gender equality in Western countries is used for national identity defining the deserving Us against the non-white Others should not be ignored when studying diasporic life. 25ajmabadi's research shows that Western heteronormality transformed the social construction of gender and sexuality in Iran through the colonial gaze since the nineteenth century.This transformation can be traced to gender inequality formation in recent years. 26Acculturation theory reproduces the same colonial gaze defining people in the diaspora as possessing a gender-unequal culture.The underlying assumption of gendered relations in the acculturation approach bypasses the resources that Iranians, regardless of their gender identifications, bring to Western countries in terms of academic education, economic resources, work experiences, and so on.These resources have not always been valued as many racialized skilled Iranians, for example in Sweden, have chosen to remigrate and find another destination that is less discriminatory and validates their skills. 27eligion is another identifier for Iranian culture that maintains the binary view of cultural differences.As an example, a study 28 examines the usage of contraception by Iranian women in Finland from an acculturation perspective.The study suggests that Iranian women's choice of having a nuclear family and fewer children is a sign of acculturation into 'Finnish values and culture' and distancing themselves from 'Iranian culture and religious rules'.This conclusion is drawn without paying attention to family formation within the Iranian context and the below-replacement fertility rate (1.89) in Iran for the same year of 2010. 29The category of migrant in their analysis is strongly tied to cultural differences in racialized bodies that inherently possess a religious and traditional culture.Despite the diversity of religious or non-religious identifications among Iranians, the public discourse on Iranian diasporas in the West is strongly tied to Islam. 30Brubaker illustrates how the culturalization of religion defines Christianity as a privileged culture that claims liberal values, including secularity, gender equality, and homosexual rights, while minority religions become unappropriated cultures that are in need of integration. 31More importantly, the dualistic view of religious-secular and modern-traditional resists an understanding of the complexity and coexistence of these constructs in everyday life.
Intergenerational relationships in migrant families are another area closely analyzed with the acculturation framework. 32The produced literature on intergenerational relationships in Iranian diasporas claims that Iranian parents are often traditional and expect their children to follow traditional (gendered) values. 33Such analyses have predominantly used Portes' and Rumbaut's perceptions of 'consonance acculturation' and 'dissonance acculturation'. 34onsonance acculturation is understood as a pattern when both parents and their children have the same level of cultural competence or acceptance towards a host society's culture and language, and dissonance acculturation occurs when these levels are not the same. 35issonance acculturation often describes migrant families whose children have adopted the culture of the receiving society contrary to their parents.
Implementing an essentialist understanding of the term 'culture' as a given entity with clear-cut boundaries when taking an acculturation approach has certainly contributed to a discourse that defines Iranian culture as collective, traditional, illiberal, and incompatible with Western culture which is considered to be inherently egalitarian and gender-equal. 36Pinning these culturalized markers to the definition of the Iranian family situates the families outside the respectful position of a deserving citizen, which itself brings challenges to their intergenerational relationships. 37

Politics of Belonging and Methodological Nationalism
A dualistic view of culture was discussed as the first shortcoming of the acculturation approach.This part elaborates on two other interrelated limitations.The second issue related to adopting an acculturation approach is the fixed hegemonic characterization of the term 'Iranian culture' as neglecting its fluidity in relation to various social constructs, such as class and race among many others. 38The acculturation lens is blind to these overlapping inequalities, and it is unable to understand the situational and fluid cultural practices among Iranians in the diaspora. 39he dynamics of Iranian diasporas differ based on the history of arrival, the politics of the home-land, and the host-land (Bauer 2000). 40Hence, the use of the unified term 'Iranian culture' is problematic with regard to the diversity among Iranians as well as the social changes that Iran has faced.Some researchers suggest using the terms 'multiple Iranian diasporas' 41 or 'a fragmented diaspora'. 42Such diversity is not only meaningful as it relates to religion, ethnicity, language, political background, or the politics of host societies but also as it relates to the overlapping local, trans-local, transnational, and global positionalities of Iranians in the diaspora, which at times can be contradictory.This means that diasporic life needs to be understood not only in relation to nationality but also in the temporal framing of coloniality, religion, class, gender, and other relevant constructs. 43In addition, we need to consider the vectors of globalization and the politics of elsewhere that shape the ways in which migrants experience their everyday lives. 44The elsewhere effect is undermined within the conceptual apparatus of the acculturation approach to the study of Iranian diasporas.In other words, the belonging of these diasporas to part of Western society is not only shaped by the national narratives of the sending and receiving societies, but it is also connected to the global politics surrounding Muslims and elsewhere politics, especially after 9/11. 45he third shortcoming of acculturation theory is the compartmentalization of cultural units and their boundaries tied to the nation-state.As Wimmer and Glick-Schiller point out, taking the nation-state as an analytical unit has been connected to the processes of nation building and to nationalist politics since the nineteenth century. 46This has influenced and channeled academic thinking in the social sciences, especially in migration studies. 47The relevance of the nation-state as an important sociological unit is undeniable when analyzing policies and practices of migration. 48However, defining cultural boundaries merely within the boundaries of naturalized nation-states as given entities bypasses international as well as intersectional processes. 49s an example, M€ uller and Kooij link the high level of aspiration for jobs and success among second generation Iranians in Germany with their assimilation into German culture. 50However, it is not clear how the assimilation of Iranians into German culture is determined when according to the same resource, the percentage of Iranians in Germany with academic degrees is higher than the national average.Another study shows the same pattern, in which Iranian-American males and females both have higher educational levels than the U.S. average. 51While seeking academic education and success seems to be important among Iranians living in Iran, the same pattern among young Iranians in the diaspora is strikingly credited to their assimilation into the culture of another nation-state.This should rather be connected to various factors including the high level of university attainment in Iran, the politics of migration, and Iran's phenomenal brain drain that greatly benefits the destination countries, as well as the politics of belonging and the ways in which migrants strive for inclusion. 52tudies have mostly investigated the causes behind the struggles of Iranian diasporas regarding their path to acculturation, while despite all their success, their inclusion has not yet been guaranteed. 53Studies address Iranian diasporas as 'well-integrated' and educated migrant groups, and yet they experience a high level of discrimination. 54he same applies to the binary understanding of gendered and religious values discussed earlier.Attaching these culturalized dichotomies to the boundaries of a nation-state identity feeds the political agenda that justifies inequalities through reproducing the discourse of 'undeserving Otherness'. 55Thus, changes in family formation or in gendered roles among Iranian communities are simply understood as exposure to countries of destination that are gender-equal.Whereas, such changes are needed to be discussed in relation to various social, political, legal, and economic entanglements that position family members in different social hierarchies.The same issues arise when studying the religion and ethnicity of migrant groups.The problem with the overemphasis on religion and ethnicity as matters of cultural difference is that they redefine ethnic group boundaries without paying attention to the processes in which such redefinitions are framed.
The acculturation framework has functioned to form a hegemonic discourse or a system of knowledge 56 that labels and categorizes Iranian diasporas on the basis of cultural and religious affiliations.These cultural boundaries are not defined as natural, but they are categorized in hierarchical order. 57Acculturation is a theory that has privileged the ideological aspect of the colonial gaze by reproducing the discourse on Iranians as undeserving Others.Such culturalized markers that have been attached to 'Iranian-looking' bodies and identities may persist in the diasporic life of newer generations of Iranian descendants and therefore prevent them from attaining full membership in the society that they are raised in. 58his argument does not suggest depriving cultural analysis.Rather, it calls for a rigorous definition of the term 'culture' beyond dichotomies and labeling in order to understand how cultural practices are meaningful in different situations and how individuals in diasporic life utilize them.One example is Maghbouleh's research 59 that studies the cultural logic of group belonging among second-generation Iranian Americans who practice the ritual of Ta'arof that encourages respect and consideration.Maghbouleh argues that the cultural performance of Ta'arof serves to build a diasporic identity among youth.While various cultural practices are valuable to the Iranian diasporas, the acculturation approach has presented a reductionist, homogenized, and subordinated perception of 'Iranian culture'.The limitation of acculturation theory is not only its inability to reflect upon the existing power structure.In addition, the discursive practices of acculturation theory served a colonial gaze that defined some bodies (in this case Iranian diasporas) as less deserving and inferior.
Other scholars have also pointed out that colonizing theories in migration studies contribute to the dominance of racial order in today's world. 60Racial order is key to Western societies' political dominance. 61To liberate from the reductionist approach one suggestion is to take a decolonial lens, as an epistemic awareness, distancing itself from the colonial gaze that imposes its own theoretical assumptions of cultural elements, including gendered relations. 62

Conclusion
This article addressed the analytical issues of previous research on Iranian diasporas when taking an acculturation theoretical lens.Acculturation refers to the process of cultural change that occurs when people from two or more cultures live in the same social setting and come to interact with each other. 63The term 'culture' in academic inquiries on Iranian diasporas has often been treated as a given entity with clear-cut boundaries.The binary view of culture as either traditional or modern undermines intersecting structural inequalities and their manifestations in diasporic life. 64From this perspective, the struggles of Iranian women in Western countries are reduced to their challenges inside their families, while the structural underpinning of inequalities that challenge their belonging and citizenship is overlooked.In addition, viewing cultural boundaries based on the borders of nation-states blinds us from seeing how the interplay of gender, race, and class creates the position of the undeserving citizens of the Iranian diasporas as religious, traditional, and incompatible with Western culture.The bias associated with methodological nationalism also prevents us from understanding the layers of inequalities and hierarchies within Iranian diasporas that need further investigation.
The acculturation lens is deeply rooted in the colonized gaze, contributing to the racialization processes.The connection between the ways in which individuals make sense of their cultural practices in different social contexts is generally unnoticed in sociological research on Iranian diasporas, mainly because of an overreliance on acculturation theory.When studying Iranian diasporas in the future, a decolonial lens may better capture the ways in which cultural resources are activated to resist structural inequality, especially racialized order.

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Immigrant Women Challenge the Role of Men: How the Changing Power Relationship within Iranian Families in Sweden Intensifies Family Conflicts after Immigration, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 33(2), p. 271. 18Shahram Khosravi (2009) Gender and Ethnicity among Iranian Men in Sweden, Journal of Iranian Studies, 42(4), p. 591. 19Ibid. 20Sahar Sadeghi (2019) Racial-Ethnic Boundaries, Stigma, and the Re-Emergence of 'Always Being Foreigners': Iranians and the Refugee Crisis in Germany, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42(10), p. 1613. 21Sara R. Farris (2017) In the Name of Women's Right: The Rise of Femonationalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press Books); Zeinab Karimi (2023) I Am Not the Info Desk for Islam and Arabs: The Racialization of Islam and Boundaries of Citizenship, Ethnic and Racial Studies.