The Transition Process of The Tribe to The Ethnic in Iran

The studies about ethnicity have a long history, which roots in the exoticism that in turn is affected by the Orientalism viewpoint on other cultures. The procedure of nation-building and modernization of Iran drastically changed the tribal life in Iran. This procedure was accompanied by extensive researched by Western researches on the tribal communities of Iran. During the last two decades, we have seen a decrease in tribal studies and a growing interest in ethnic studies from the perspective of political and social sciences. The new ethnic terms such as Kurds and Balouchs became the substitutes of the former tribal names. However, the transition of the tribe to the ethnic is mostly neglected in the scholarship. These studies have not paid attention to the mechanisms and conversion process form tribe to ethnicity.
For this reason, analyzing the group's dynamics and multiple influential factors in this transition, and also the role of cultural content in the transition process has been ignored. This study is trying to take a fresh look at the issue of the tribal and the ethnic in Iran from a process approach and to emphasize the role of cultural content.