Re-Interpreting Modern Iran: Tribe and State in the Twentieth Century

For the nationalist elite of early Pahlavi Iran, the regime's military successes over tribal opposition, whether real or imagined, were welcomed and celebrated. These successes were interpreted as confirmation of their views of tribal power as hostile to modernity, archaic and outmoded, and of Riza Shah as the deliverer of Iran's national salvation. This conceptualization of the “tribal problem” had appeared in tandem with and as a product of modernist ideology in the late nineteenth century, acquired the backing of state power with the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty, and endured until the revolution of 1979. It communicated itself, in diluted form, to Western scholarship, which has been largely content to depict Riza Shah's tribal policies as regrettably brutal, but an unavoidable stage in Iran's progress and “modernization.”

Yet this version of tribe–state relations is clearly an ideological construct rather than an historical analysis. The account which follows begins a re-evaluation of tribal politics in modern Iran, focusing especially on the Riza Shah decades when these politics were a site of intense conflict and where the nationalist template was most starkly delineated, and concludes by tracing and re-examining the evolution of the tribe–state dynamic in the decades of land reform and revolution.     

枪手的部落--来自苗族聚落岜沙的田野报告

这里的每一座大山都有一个灵魂,每个灵魂都有一个故事,每个故事都是一部历史…… 在中国贵州山峦重迭、沟壑纵横的莽苍深处,散落着无数的民族聚落.由于高山横碍、深谷切割,这些聚落中的人民自古以来与外界少有交通,始终处于孤立隔绝的状态.     

The Lhoba Tribe in Dermo

ＴｈｅＬｈｏｂａＴｒｉｂｅｉｎＤｅｒｍｏｂｙＷａｎｇＬｉｍｉｎＯｎＡｕｇｕｓｔ１５,１９５０,ｔｈｅｓｅｃｏｎｄｄａｙｏｆｔｈｅｓｅｖｅｎｔｈｍｏｎｔｈｉｎｔｈｅＴｉｂｅｔａｎＹｅａｒｏｆｔｈｅｉｒｏｎＴｉｇｅｒ,ａｎｅａｒｔｈｑｕａｋｅｍｅａｓｕｒ...     

蒙古国最后的驯鹿部落

在蒙古国与俄罗斯的接壤处库苏古尔省的查冈努尔地区,辽阔的大草原上散布着牛、羊、马儿和各种野生动物,一汪碧翠深邃的库苏古尔湖宛若一颗坠落草原的明珠,2700平方千米的宽阔湖面被茂密的针叶松林所围绕,不远处是海拔3000多米的峰峦,     

Poverty and development in a marginal community: case study of a settlement of the Sugali Tribe in Andhra Pradesh, India

The concepts of poverty and development have many meanings in contemporary globalized societies. Development by definition implies desired changes in terms of livelihood, improved quality of life and better access to assets and services, etc. However in reality development programmes sometimes have negative consequences, perhaps unintended, multiplying the acute scarcity of resources and opportunities, or reproducing poverty. Also, the consequences of developmental programmes often appear to be out of focus, and seen at the ground level, there seems to be a gap between what is intended and what is actualized. In this framework, this paper presents a case study of the social, cultural and economic correlates of the development processes in Adadakulapalle, a settlement of Sugali peoples, once a semi-nomadic tribe, in Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh, South India. The paper shows how factionalism and faction politics affect the implementation of development interventions. It also looks at the poverty in the settlement and focuses on the types of change that people have experienced with the implementation of different schemes by both government and other agencies. The type of change is discussed in the present study through the macro and micro analysis of development programmes.