The aesthetics of ritual – contested identities and conflicting performances in the Iraqi Shi’a diaspora: Ritual, performance and identity change
| Author | Emanuelle Degli Esposti |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0263395717707092 |
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
research-article2017
Special Issue Article
Politics
2018, Vol. 38(1) 68 –83
The aesthetics of ritual
© The Author(s) 2017
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– contested identities and
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395717707092
DOI: 10.1177/0263395717707092
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conflicting performances in
the Iraqi Shi’a diaspora:
Ritual, performance and
identity change
Emanuelle Degli Esposti
University of London, UK
Abstract
What are the processes through which identity change takes place at the individual and
collective level? How might a focus on embodied religious performance and ritual contribute
to understandings of such identity change? Through an ethnographic analysis of the Muharram
rituals of Iraqi Shi’is in London, I take religious rites as a starting point from which to theorise a
performative theory of identity change to highlight the role of ritual and performance in shaping
changing notions of identity at both the individual and collective level. Such a project necessarily
engages both with processes of identity change and with the paradox of identity/difference,
particularly the ways in which articulations of subjective identity are ontologically dependent on
an external ‘other’. Ultimately, I argue that paying close critical attention to the performative
and (re)iterative processes of micro-level identificatory practices allows a more nuanced
understanding of the mechanisms through which identity change comes to take effect, both at the
level of individual subjectivity and that of collective social belonging.
Keywords
aesthetics, identity change, performativity, ritual, subjectivity
Received: 29th May 2016; Revised version received: 17th December 2016; Accepted: 21st February 2016
Introduction
Delineations between individual and collective identities are analytically problematic
(Brubaker and Cooper, 2000) and yet represent sites of multiple and intersecting socio-
political processes that can evade critical deconstruction (Hall, 2000). While acknowledg-
ing the complexities of current scholarly debates, this article seeks to combine an empirical
Corresponding author:
Emanuelle Degli Esposti, SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H
0XG, UK.
Email: ee18@soas.ac.uk
Degli Esposti
69
preoccupation with the performativity of identity with an ethnographic methodological
sensitivity to everyday practices in order to explore how performative identity change may
come to inform both individual and collective forms of belonging. In this way, the micro-
level analysis outlined here also speaks to wider processes of identity change, especially
when it comes to mobilising collective identities for political purposes. This article thus
necessarily engages with the paradox of identity/difference that recurs throughout this
Special Issue, especially the way in which subjective articulations of identity are always-
already lacking due to their ontological dependence on an external ‘other’.
The empirical cases under scrutiny here are the religious performances of devout Iraqi
Shi’is in London, specifically the ways in which rituals of mourning and commemoration
during the Islamic month of Muharram performatively constitute alternative articulations
of Iraqi Shi’a subjectivity in ways that interrogate both the identity categories of ‘Iraqi’
and ‘Shi’a’. Drawing on ongoing research, the article makes use of empirical data from
more than 2 years of ethnographic fieldwork among practicing Iraqi Shi’is in London
between 2013 and 2015, as well as a total of 30 semi-structured interviews and 50 infor-
mal interviews. This research was facilitated by my liminal positionality of both ‘insider’
(through my marriage) and ‘outsider’ (through my European ethnicity and academic sta-
tus). As a woman, I had access to female-only environments, and I was often introduced
as an extended family member (further helped by my knowledge of Iraqi dialect).
Conversely, this also made it harder to break out of existing social networks and gain
exposure to Iraqi Shi’is from different classes and political backgrounds. To address this
challenge, I supplemented participant observation with interviews conducted with reli-
gious, political, and community leaders and activists. All participants were aware of my
own (agnostic) religious background, which simultaneously both presented an obstacle to
my complete integration within the community and conferred me the status of external
observer.
Drawing on this rich ethnographic data, the article explores three performative prac-
tices that are implicated in reconstituting Iraqi Shi’a identity in the diaspora: the conflict
between first-generation Iraqi diasporans and the second-generation British-born Iraqi
Shi’is, the political salience of the distinction drawn between Iraqi and Iranian Shi’ism,
and the foregrounding of victimhood and the promotion of ‘Shi’a rights’. Each of these
changes points towards an identity shift in which sectarian and religious forms of identity
are taking precedence over nationalistic and community ones, and may be understood as
part of a global transition towards ‘difference, exclusion, and marginalisation’ inherent in
the condition of modernity (Giddens, 1991: 6, original emphasis).
Diaspora and identity change
Despite the rise in critical approaches to diaspora (e.g. Axel, 2001, 2002, 2004; Brah,
1996; Brubaker, 2005; Ong, 2003; Raman, 2003; Venn, 2009), much of the literature con-
tinues to reify or essentialise any notion of ‘diaspora identity’ along ethno-national (Cohen,
1996; Tölölyan, 1996; Safran, 1991) or cultural lines (Hall, 1990). Within essentialised
frameworks, ‘diaspora identity’ is most often studied and understood through the mobili-
sation practices of diaspora activists towards the homeland (see, for example, Adamson,
2002, 2012; Koinova, 2013). Conversely, while recent scholarship on the ‘Muslim dias-
pora’ (Aitchison et al., 2007; Cesari, 2004; Meer, 2010; Modood, 2003; Roy, 2004) has
prioritised trans-ethnic and transnational forms of identification along religious lines, the
heterogeneity of sectarian, ethnic, national and cultural traditions encompassed by the
70
Politics 38(1)
catch-all term of ‘Islam’ is rarely explored in full. This article thus represents both a theo-
retical and empirical intervention by arguing, first, for the need to consider alternative
forms of diaspora identity that take seriously the transformative potential of performative
identity practices, and second, for the cultivation of multiple and fluid identity catego-
ries that move beyond essentialised understandings of religion, ethnicity, nationality, or
culture, to focus on the multiple and shifting ways such categories may interact and
intersect over time. The choice of empirical case study is deliberate as it represents the
opportunity both to redress the ‘scholarly neglect’ of Shi’a minorities within the wider
Muslim diaspora (Scharbrodt et al., in press) and to highlight how micro-level mecha-
nisms of identity change may be implicated in wider socio-political struggles for domi-
nance and recognition.
Drawing on the work of critical scholars of diaspora studies (especially Axel, 2001,
2002, 2004; Brubaker, 2005; Werbner, 2002), I seek to problematise the notion of ‘dias-
pora’ as an ontological thing in the world and of the implicit assumption that a ‘diaspora’
is both a pre-formed social entity and an agglomeration of individuals who have been
scattered across the world and who nurture an indelible link to the imagined diasporic
homeland. Rather, I take classifications of diaspora as ‘a globally mobile category
of identification’ (Axel, 2004: 27) or as ‘a series of projected imaginaries of identity’
(Werbner, 2005: 758) as starting points from which to theorise Iraqi Shi’a diasporic iden-
tity as a historically specific and temporally contingent discursive alignment. Here, my
focus on the Iraqi Shi’a diaspora should be understood as a theoretical and empirical
preoccupation with the various nationalistic and sectarian identity discourses circulated
and (re)iterated within the diasporic space – and which are alternatively enacted and
performed by individuals who in so doing constitute themselves as diasporic subjects.
In this sense, my use of the term ‘Iraqi Shi’a diaspora’ refers not to individual Iraqi
Shi’is themselves but to the discursively constructed ‘diasporic imaginary’ (Axel, 2002)
of Iraqi Shi’ism that is maintained and performed in the diasporic space. Indeed, I have
encountered little evidence to suggest that the average Iraqi Shi’i living in London has
any understanding of themselves as ‘diasporic’ beyond their status as exiles or migrants,
but rather seek to identify themselves with alternative iterations of the identity categories
of ‘Iraqi’ and ‘Shi’a’ that circulate within the diasporic imaginary.1 From this theoretical
standpoint, a focus on micro-level practices and performances of identity become key to
understanding the mechanisms of identity change as enacted within the diasporic space.
Significance of case study
The transnational dimension of the Iraqi Shi’a diaspora – both through enduring links
to Iraq itself and as a result of the role of the Shi’a clerical establishment and the influ-
ence of the Islamic Republic of Iran – allows this study to speak to wider processes of
identity change that echo across national...
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