Investigating the challenges and opportunities of Iranians' national identity in the age of globalization

Abstract

Identity is the process of answering a bunch of questions of a person about himself/herself, such as: Who is he/she? Where has he/she been? To what tribe, race or nation does he/she belong? Where is his/her origin? And, what role does he/she play in world's civilization? Meanwhile, national identity is a means to distinguish one nation from another one based on shared consciousness around some collectively defined concepts, and no national identity will be developed unless there would be a common consciousness. However, the situation of national identity of countries especially developing countries such as Iran has more complicated in the age of so-called Globalization. This phenomenon that is caused by the change of economic infrastructure of capitalist world and the expansion of transportation and communication means such as mass media, have connected all societies, cultures etc. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to investigate the components of Iranians' national identity and the challenges and opportunities posed in this regard in the era of globalization, using desk research methodology. In this context, the main question of the research is "What impact globalization has had on Iranians' national identity?" In other words, does globalization process undermine Iranians' national identity or strengthen it? The hypothesis proposed here is that globalization is both a challenge and opportunity; hence, Iranians' national identity should possess the capacity to cope with new sub-national and transnational identities. Finally, the required data and information has been collected from archival, library and internet resources.