Conditional Belonging The Racialization of Iranians in the Wake of Anti-Muslim Politics

"Conditional Belonging is a serious, timely contribution to scholarship on the racialization and migration experiences of Iranians. By providing the first in-depth, comparative analysis of Iranian immigrants in the United States and Germany, Sahar Sadeghi deepens our understanding of national and cultural membership in both societies. Clear, readable, and effective, this is an important book that answers the call for a more global and comparative Iranian diaspora studies" (Neda Maghbouleh, author of The Limits of Whiteness) "Conditional Belonging is a brilliant, piercing ethnographic portrayal of how first-and second-generation Iranians in the United States and Germany navigate the complexities of racialization while struggling to gain full recognition and social belonging-without ever quite succeeding. Gripping first-hand accounts reveal how race-based nationalism continues to inform the social order in liberal, democratic states and amplify the sidelining of so-called foreign others. This timely book is a must-read for understanding both the visible and hidden racial projects that undermine collective commitments to unconditional inclusion and equality." (Manata Hashemi, author of Coming of Age in Iran) "Conditional Belonging demonstrates the ways in which empire (US) and racial nationalism (Germany) operate to situate Iranians as perpetual foreigners, including among the linguistically and culturally adept second generation and the most socially integrated of immigrants. It foregrounds the role of politics in shaping racial stigmatization within each context. With data collected from two waves of interviews, Iranians' identities become politicized through discursive forces tied to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the hostage crisis, the election of Donald Trump, the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe and the 2017 Muslim travel ban." (Sociology of Race and Ethnicity) "A beautifully written study with rich testimonial data and ... a major contribution to studies on racialization, Muslims, and the Iranian diaspora." (American Journal of Sociology)