A Fragmented and Polarized Diaspora: The Making of an Iranian Pluralist Consciousness in Malaysia

This article explores the diasporic subjectivities of Iranians in Malaysia, specifi cally how homeland and host country’s national domestic policies and bilateral state relations, in addition to international politics, mold Iranians’ diasporic discourses, organizations, and economics. Positioned within the broader scholarship, my ethnography in Kuala Lumpur identifi es the specifi city and diversity of Iranian diasporic subjects that embed three accompanying processes of (1) fragmentation along the overlapping socioeconomic, political, ethnic, and gender lines; (2) polarization denoting open opposition of political ideologies and allegiances, religious interpretations, as well as ethnic and gender identities; (3) and pluralization as consciousness accommodating free and equal interaction and communication among diverse groups. Exploring these processes, I argue that the Iranians who observed, discussed, and imagined their own fragmentation and polarization, also developed a pluralist consciousness informed by the host country’s diverse backdrop.