Abstract
This chapter presents an empirically based account of how the research respondents used web applications for engaging with various aspects of the past. Drawing on a variety of cases, ranging from posting photos of the ancient norooz ritual on Instagram, to designing a documentary video game about the 1963 coup in Iran, the author argues that the second generation incorporates web platforms into their particular styles of engaging with historical accounts, actively (re)producing narratives that they position themselves within. Using literature from diasporic memory studies and (digital) heritage studies, the chapter traces how the respondents engage critically with the Iranian past through their contemporary experiences of growing up in the USA. It concludes by pointing out how the role of web applications develops with relation to physical objects, including historical artifacts, books, and ritual altars, each with its own affordances for mediating the past and appealing to this new generation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Baumann, G. (2004). Grammars identity/alterity: A structural approach. In G. Baumann & A. Gingrich (Eds.), Grammars of identity, alterity: A structural approach (p. 219). New York: Berghahn Books.
Bellaigue, C. (2012). Patrior of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a tragic Anglo-American coup. London: Harper Perennial.
Berliner, D. (2005). The abuses of memory: Reflections on the memory boom in anthropology. Anthropological Quarterly, 78, 197–211. doi:10.1353/anq.2005.0001.
Bolter, J. D., & Grusin, R. (2000). Remediation: Understanding new media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Boym, S. (2001). The future of nostalgia. New York: Basic Books.
Buckingham, D., & Scanlon, M. (2005). Selling learning: Towards a political economy of edutainment media. Media Culture & Society, 27, 41–58. doi:10.1177/0163443705049057.
Cameron, F. (2007). Beyond the cult of the replicant: Museums and historical digital objects—Traditional concerns, new discourses. In F. Cameron & S. Kenderdine (Eds.), Theorizing digital cultural heritage. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Cameron, F. (2008). The politics of heritage authorship: The case of digital heritage collections. In Y. E. Kalay, T. Kvan, & J. Affleck (Eds.), New heritage: New media and cultural heritage. Oxon: Routledge.
Connerton, P. (1989). How societies remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Connerton, P. (2006). Cultural memory. In C. Tilley, W. Keane, S. Keuchler, et al. (Eds.), Handbook of material culture. London: Sage Publications.
Daha, M. (2011). Contextual factors contributing to ethnic identity development of second-generation Iranian American adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Research, 26, 543–569. doi:10.1177/0743558411402335.
Duyvendak, J.-W. (2011). Politics of home: Belonging and nostalgia in Europe and the United States. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ghorashi, H. (2002). Ways to survive, battles to win: Iranian women exiles in the Netherlands and United States. New York: Nova Publishers.
Ghorashi, H. (2004). How dual is transnational identity? A debate on dual positioning of diaspora organizations. Culture and Organization, 10, 329–340. doi:10.1080/1475955042000313768.
Giaccardi, E. (2007). Cross-media interaction for the virtual museum. In New heritage: New media and cultural heritage (p. 336). Oxon: Routledge.
Halbwachs, M. (1924). Between memory and history: Les Lieux Memoire. Paris: Albin Michel.
Hall, S. (1998). Cultural identity and diaspora in identity: Community, culture, difference (ed: J. Rutherford). London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Hinton, S., & Hjorth, L. (2013). Understanding social media. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (1998). Objects of ethnography. In B. Kirshenblatt-gimblett (Ed.), Destination culture: Tourism, museums, and heritage (p. 311). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kirshenblatt-gimblett, B. (2000). Folklorists in public: Reflections on cultural brokerage in the United States and Germany. Journal of Folklore Research, 37, 1–19.
Lowenthal, D. (1985). The past is a foreign country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lowenthal, D. (1996). Possessed by the past: The heritage crusade and the spoils of history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maffesoli, M. (1996). The time of the tribes: The decline of individualism in mass society. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Maghbouleh, N. (2010). “Inherited nostalgia” among second-generation Iranian Americans: A case study at a Southern California University. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 31, 199–218. doi:10.1080/07256861003606382.
Malek, A. (2011). Public performances of identity negotiation in the Iranian diaspora : The New York Persian Day Parade public performances of identity negotiation in the Iranian diaspora : The New York Persian Day Parade. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 31, 388–410.
Malpas, J. (2007). Cultural heritage in the age of new media. In New heritage: New media and cultural heritage. Oxon and New York: Routledge.
Meyer, B. (2009). Aesthetic formations: Media, religion, and the senses. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Moallem, M. (2005). Between warrior brother and veiled sister: Islamic fundamentalism and the politics of patriarchy in Iran. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Naficy, H. (1993). The making of exile cultures: Iranian television in Los Angeles. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Nedelcu, M. (2012). “Netizenship” and Migrants’ online mobilization: Transnational participation and collective action in the Digital era. In I. Rigoni & E. Saitta (Eds.), Mediating cultural diversity in a globalized public space (p. 192). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nora, P. (1984, Spring). Between memory and history: Les Lieux Memoire. Representations, 26, 7–24.
Probst, P. (2009). Picturing the past: Heritage, photography, and the politics of appearance in a Yoruba City. In F. de Jong & M. Rowlands (Eds.), Reclaiming heritage: Amternative imaginaries of memory in West Africa. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Serematakis, N. (1996). The senses still. Chicago, MA: University of Chicago Press.
Smith, L. (2006). Uses of heritage. New York: Routledge.
Stok, F. (2010). Home and memory. In S. McLoughlin & K. Knott (Eds.), Diaspora: Concepts, intersections, identities. London: Zed Books.
Sullivan, Z. (2001). Exiled memories: Stories of Iranian diaspora. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Zia-Ebrahimi, R. (2011). Self-orientalization and dislocation: The uses and abuses of the “Aryan” discourse in Iran. Iranian Studies, 44, 445–472. doi:10.1080/00210862.2011.569326.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Alinejad, D. (2017). Memory. In: The Internet and Formations of Iranian American-ness. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47626-1_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47626-1_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47625-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47626-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)