Encountering Central and Marginal People: Cultural Racism in Tabriz

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Director of Research Core for Cultural Anthropolgy, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

Abstract

In the anthropological literature about urban marginalized poor, there was a little attention to the culture of city dwellers toward slums. In this article, I explore the ways in which lay people, authorities and formal institutions deal with marginalized population of Qopanlar neighborhood in Tabriz, Northwest Iran. The data based on the ethnographic fieldwork has been done during 2016-2020 and 2023 in one marginal neighborhood and formal meetings in institutions. I gathered the data through observation and participation in daily life, conversations with men, and some archival reviews. For theoretical understanding of the struggles of the cultures of center and margin dwellers, I used concepts of Foucault̕ s racism, Fassin̕ s biolegitimacy, and Bourdieu̕ s symbolic conflicts. My anthropological study shows that the dealing of center people with marginal ones starts with naming and classifying, with the goal of the judgment of value of life. I developed the concept of cultural racism to show that how villagers who live in the margins of the city of Tabriz define as lower race. The life of the marginalized people devalued by exteriors through four processes: Violence of naming, unrecognizing, institutional discrimination, and clash of habitus.

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Main Subjects

References

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Quarterly Journal of Social Development (Previously Human Development)
Volume 18, Issue 2 - Serial Number 70
Vol. 18, No. 2, Winter 2023
March 2023
Pages 107-132

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