Introduction
In recent decades, growing concern for the environment has surfaced in Iran. Many Iranians are now aware of the severity of the environmental challenges faced by their country, given the frequent air pollution alerts, unpredictable flood warnings, and water-deprived neighborhood parks and ponds. Environmental troubles have become increasingly acute in the eyes of the public, especially since the 1990s, when Iran hurriedly shored up its economic activities in recovering from the Iran-Iraq war.Footnote 1 These activities were extensive and immense, entailing the massive mobilization of capital, natural resources, and people, bringing significant change to the country's physical landscape and the ways Iranians view and understand the so-called environment.
Against this background, the Department of Environment (DOE) has been tasked with overseeing the country's scientific management of natural resources and built environment in a way that allows economic activities to continue sustainably.Footnote 2 The government and other key institutions – including universities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who share the government's concerns, interests, and agendas for environmental protection – have come to increasingly value a systematic approach to understanding the environment.Footnote 3 Consequently, the environment has become an object of scientific inquiry for critically analyzing methods of environmental protection and management in Iran.Footnote 4
At the same time, research findings suggest that the rise in environmental problems in Iran has resulted in the growth of concepts beyond the scientific concept of the environment. Emerging discourses of environment and environmental practices are irreducible to merely scientific terms and dimensions, as such are operating at multiple levels, in ways reflective of Iran's distinctive cultural traditions, which incorporate differing notions of nature.Footnote 5 Such layers of meaning become particularly evident when considered from a viewpoint attentive to the material dimensions of environmental protection schemes on the ground.Footnote 6 The materiality of the environment plays a vital role in the configuration of particular notions of nature, through which particular environmental discourses and practices are generated. Such perspectives allow us to look at material things or non-humans not just as something meaningfully projected or represented by cultural systems, but also as part of the social forces helping to fashion the unfolding of environmental activities. Drawing on fieldwork in Tehran, the following analysis focuses on the material dimensions of national symbols – particularly mediated through the Asiatic cheetah and the national flag – to demonstrate how their materiality is constitutive of the environmental discourses and practices I observed in Iran.Footnote 7
Materiality, the environment, and Iranian-ness
In scholarly environmental inquiries, ecologists generally look at the ways in which humans, as the sole agents, leave ecological footprints on the insentient world of non-humans. Such studies are typically based on a conceptual premise that prioritizes humans as the agents fashioning society and history through their use of the things and non-human organisms living around them, revealing the asymmetrical relation between humans and non-humans. Additionally, the latter are presumed to be non-agentive and operating discretely from the former, giving the impression that there exists a conceptual wall with no correspondence between the two and the respective realms are distinct from each other.Footnote 8
Highly critical of this concept of asymmetrical relations restricting movement across the realms, Ingold undoes this conceptual restriction by shedding light on the ongoing, open-ended processes of becoming in which both humans and non-humans are entangled in ways not bound by these preconceived realms.Footnote 9 For the investigation of materiality in the field of environment, matters of concern include “waters, sands, reeds, plants, insects, animals, and humans and the ways in which they live interrelationally in shared worlds.”Footnote 10 The land, for example, generally concerns many of these matters and is one of the major threads of such studies that explore this mutual entanglement; going beyond its physical dimensions, the land is deemed highly pivotal to making sense of one's existence and lifeworlds.Footnote 11 Overall, “nature” is a key site of investigation in studies of environment, as differing notions of nature exist.Footnote 12 Scholars have critically explored the distinctive manner in which “natures” are made through humans with particular social histories and animals and plants with unique ecological histories.Footnote 13
In the context of studying environmental activism in Iran, humans can be viewed not as distant from the world of non-humans that humans are acting upon, but rather involved and corresponding with their material presence of non-humans, while affording particular social histories to play out in environmental activities. It is through this analytical framework that this article turns to the non-humans that environmental activists find relevant and engage with in their activities in order to explore how the forces of materiality shed light on particular social histories that reflect keenly on the environmental discourses and practices I encountered in the field. I frequently stumbled across material traces of the Iranian nation or Iranian-ness that conditioned particular environmental discourses and practices in the course of my fieldwork; in parallel to the scientific notion of nature, further investigations reveal a distinctive notion of nature associated with Iran's nationhood at play in the field of the environment.Footnote 14 Many environmentalists I met in Iran touched on this notion of nature while participating in environmental activities. Such encounters often occurred alongside their engagement with national symbols, namely Asiatic cheetahs and the national flag, as shown in the case studies below.Footnote 15
Overture: materiality of the land and nationhood
As I made visits to numerous eco-tour companies in Tehran, the notion of nature configured through Iran's nationhood was becoming clearer to me. In one such visit, I had a conversation about the company's view on nature and how they came to organize eco-tours. For these tour companies, the land they sought to protect and draw attention to had historical significance, tied to the nation, and provided a key framework through which their environmental awareness arose. This section describes how the land, being irreducible to its status as a non-agentive object, moves and is moved by an eco-tour manager, allowing me to introduce a particular social history that unfolded amid environmental activities I encountered in the field.
As I went about researching the growing environmental awareness in Iran, numerous individuals called my attention to the rising popularity of eco-tours in Tehran, suggesting I visit the companies running such tours to find out more about their contribution to the cause. On a summer day in 2011, Mehrdad – an M.A. student in environmental sciences who offered to help collect data for my research – and I visited an eco-tourism office in central Tehran to conduct interviews. I had scheduled an appointment, and we were warmly welcomed by four office workers, including the office manager.
According to the office manager, this business had started five years prior, aiming to raise environmental awareness through education. They organized a variety of eco-tour programs throughout the country, including bird watching, (protected) wildlife tours, hiking, mountain climbing, rafting, and quarry tours. In the course of our conversation, I came to understand that these destinations had been chosen for reasons reflective of the special status the manager reserves for Iran's land. Having personally witnessed green land transforming into desolate and barren in recent decades, he felt compelled to act by educating the general public about Iran's distinctive yet degenerating nature. In describing tour details, he explained why he targeted destinations such as lakes, forests, islands, and deserts for eco-tours, instead of others: he chose destinations that would expose (mostly domestic and educated) tourists to the kind of nature that exists only in Iran, thereby helping to increase appreciation for the country's rapidly disappearing nature. “The land is unique and its our property, the people's,” he said, insisting it must be protected, not wasted; the same sentiment recounted at other eco-tour offices I visited.
The manager went on to stress that experiencing immersion in the land is essential to gaining appreciation for the nature distinct to Iran and its territories. He then introduced to us the kind of tours into which this understanding is incorporated. In one of the tours, for example, participants spend time in a mountainous region away from Tehran just long enough to be wedded to and feel appreciative of the land that nourishes existing cultural traditions there. They do not stay at hotels, instead camping out in order to find their own relationship with nature. In a way, tour participants’ corporeal experiences are formed through their engagement with the land; they do not grasp the land through their internal representation of it, but rather through their entanglement with it.Footnote 16 At the same time, when visiting nearby villages during the tour, participants are also encouraged to purchase handcrafted products, eat at restaurants, and generously compensate local guides for their services. This way, the manager explained, participants become more aware and appreciative of the national resources – both nature and cultural traditions – found in these areas. Such conversations revealed that the manager viewed the land as something pressingly indigenous and unique to Iran, critically shaping the prospect and direction of the eco-tours his company arranges.
I also learned that, for many, including numerous others I interviewed, the land was seen as a matter of national concern and, often, historical significance. Kashani-Sabet examines the historical roles, since the 19th century, the land has played in forging Iranians’ national identity, arguing that the land continues to be a critical concern in contemporary Iranian society, which witnesses territorial disputes.Footnote 17 Such a notion of the land moored to the nation also gains significance in popular leitmotifs in Persian literature; for example, references to Mt. Damavand, the highest peak in the Middle East, often appear. In addition to being well-known for its height, Mt. Damavand also carries mythological relevance, seen as marking and molding Iran's territories based on the popular Shahnameh epic.Footnote 18 Tehran experiences unhealthy days throughout the year due to air pollution, with haze hovering over the city. On such occasions, colleagues and friends sometimes emailed me photos of Damavand covered in smog, taken from Tehran, to remind me that Iran has air problems. Environmental problems are, in a way, associated with the land and the nation at large, revealing a particular notion of nature that underlies environmental problems.Footnote 19
The notion of nature underlying such environmental discourses is formed through Iran's distinctiveness as a nation and is pertinent to the discussion that follows. My research findings suggest that this peculiar social history of Iran’s territories being associated with environmental problems manifested differently over the course of my fieldwork and became evident when considering the material forces mediated through Asiatic cheetahs and the national flag in the following case studies.
Case study: Asiatic cheetahs
During my fieldwork, I encountered numerous individuals who spoke about Iran's existing environmental crisis with regards to endangered animals. For example, when asked his view of the country's environmental plight, an environmental NGO member working to raise awareness through education responded:
Iran is facing environmental challenges on various fronts and has begun to witness such effects, especially in areas where we used to have a wealth of biodiversity. As a result of excessive human activities, we now see a smaller number of indigenous animals and plants in those areas.
On another occasion, a non-expert parkgoer in Tehran expressed a similar point of view when noting that the mismanagement of water resources had caused environmental disasters in places such as northern parts of Iran, affecting the living conditions of animals unique to those locations. In the environmental narratives of these interviewees, as well as those of many others I spoke with, animal and plant diversity typically served as an index of the health of the environment.
Iran has experienced considerable loss of biodiversity since pre-revolutionary times. According to Jowkar et al., several distinctive species – including the Caspian tiger and Asiatic lion – had become extinct by the early 1960s due mainly to excessive hunting activities.Footnote 20 Other species have also come up against the threat of extinction and are now listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This perilous situation for animals, and plants, is reported to have been exacerbated by population growth and economic activities, especially after the mid-1990s, which brought numerous environmental problems, such as desertification, land erosion, and overgrazing.Footnote 21 Many consider the country as slow to respond to these effects, with the response undertaken being inefficient and insufficient.Footnote 22
According to my interviewees, animals, especially those determined to be indigenous to Iran, serve as an avenue by which the environmental crisis is made relevant and relatable to people. In light of the previous section's discussion, non-humans, including animals, are not the kinds of living beings that respond or move only when humans interact with them; they do not merely embody the cultural meaning attributed to them. Non-humans are, rather, part of the processes of becoming, continuingly evolving through their mutual correspondence with humans and other non-humans alike.Footnote 23 The following case study from a DOE event demonstrates the ways in which environmental activists and animals – Asiatic cheetahs specifically – are entangled with one another, helping to reveal a particular social history of the animal and a distinctive notion of nature at play in the field of environment in Iran.Footnote 24
In recent decades, in response to growing environmental challenges, the Iranian government has held an annual environment-themed event in northern Tehran, the “International Environmental Exhibition.” The DOE invites relevant organizations and companies – both domestic and international – to this event, expanding its list of participants since the inaugural event in 2000.Footnote 25 A major goal of this exhibition is to showcase notable achievements in environmental research and projects, thereby heightening citizens’ sensibilities for an environment-friendly society.Footnote 26 During fieldwork in Tehran, I was able to attend both the 2011 and 2016 events. The 2016 exhibition and associated conversations are of greater relevance to the current study, however, as they more clearly revealed some aspects of the materiality of the Asiatic cheetah.
At the 2016 exhibition, I stopped by the booth of an environmental NGO committed to protecting the lives and habitats of the Asiatic cheetah. Asiatic cheetahs are a critically endangered species according to the IUCN and reputed to only currently exist in Iran. At the booth, virtual artefacts – such as photographs and a 3-D stage setting modeled on a protected habitat, with a place to take photos – immediately caught my attention. Bahram, who I knew from previous meetings, and four other staff members warmly welcomed my visit. They gave me a quick tour of their exhibit and explained the dire circumstances of the cheetah and the organization's rescue activities. As Bahram explained:
You know, on Earth these years, we can only find Asiatic cheetahs in Iran, as their habitats have rapidly shrunk due to excessive human activities like development projects. We carefully monitor the habitats and activities of cheetahs, poaching, and the kinds of development projects deemed threatening to their lives. We, for example, once protested against and thwarted a highway project that would have built paved roads right in the middle of their habitat.
The photographs on display included those of Asiatic cheetahs in a protected area and some of NGO members engaged in activities in the field. The staff members referred and drew my attention to these photographs as they walked me through the exhibit, communicating their passion for cheetah protection. At the end of the exhibit, I took commemorative photos with the members at the designated spot.
After the exhibition, as I was interested in Bahram's personal story, I followed up with him about his persistent interest in cheetahs. Surrounded by friends and acquaintances with shared environmental interests, Bahram said, his curiosity was drawn to related areas of interest, including animals and water. Asiatic cheetahs, as it turned out, came to be his favorite subject and matter of concern. Following on, in the early 2000s, he then worked for an environmental NGO aiming to protect wildlife in Iran, including the Asiatic cheetah, during which time he made numerous trips to protected areas, kept observation records, and published his findings. Feeling compelled to keep an eye on Iran's environmental issues, even when forced to hold multiple jobs to make a living, Bahram kept returning to the field as much as possible, monitoring the cheetahs’ living conditions to raise environmental awareness. Asiatic cheetahs, in a way, helped Bahram to establish social relationships with others and shaped his career path, thus becoming a “social agent” for him and revealing a distinctive way of “relatedness” between humans and an animal species that Govindrajan also variously explores in the Himalayas.Footnote 27
During my fieldwork in Iran, I noted the striking number of environmental NGOs committed to the protection of the Asiatic cheetah. For environmental activists, it became clear that the cheetahs possess some irreplaceable value, deserving of urgent protection. The fact that Iran is the only home for this rare animal species magnifies its value, leading such activists to argue that Iran, and no one else, bares responsibility for ensuring the cheetahs’ home. At the exhibition, for example, directing my attention to photographs of cheetahs crouching in a field, Bahram told me that cheetahs are very dear to him, deserve to exist, and continued: “because they are found only in Iran, it is our responsibility to protect their habitat and lives. It is as if they [the cheetahs] represent ourselves, I mean, our country.”
Memories evoked by the cheetahs also help these activists to fashion a “nature” defined in non-mechanical, scientific terms: nature configured through nationhood. Many activists I interviewed, both at the exhibition and in their offices, lamented and repeatedly emphasized that, Iran used to be an environmentally-friendly nation at the height of its civilization thousands of years ago, when diverse species of animals, such as the cheetahs, found a home there. Given this past, the cheetahs signify the richness and depth of a national culture that once thrived in the realm of the natural environment for these activists. In numerous conversations with activists and non-activists, the issues facing the Asiatic cheetah arose, prompting them to share their views on nature in light of the nation's past. Eliciting particular memories of the nation's past, the cheetah has come to embody the identity of Iran: both the cheetahs and Iran are seen as in a state of decline and in need of “restoration” to the prosperity both previously enjoyed.Footnote 28 The Asiatic cheetah, in a way, has become a national symbol through which, in the context of environmental protection, Iranian-ness is embodied and sought out, thus helping to connect environmental activism with the Iranian nation. Interestingly, symbols do not merely exhibit the fixed cultural representation produced by structures; indeed, the materiality of such symbols can produce an affect in discursive manners through images and narratives of the Asiatic cheetah.Footnote 29 In fact, of the various existing animal species in Iran, cheetahs receive special attention by domestic media outlets, who portray them as distinctly associated with the country, demonstrating a process of their becoming that involves the social circulation of particular histories within it. For example, as part of their efforts to showcase the cheetah and raise environmental awareness, Iran's national football team adopted an Asiatic cheetah logo on their jersey for World Cup 2014 and 2018. Given the enormous popularity of football in Iran, the decision to have the cheetah depicted on their jersey indicates the national significance of this animal. More recently, the death of the last surviving of the three cheetah cubs born in captivity in 2022, Pirouz, made news headlines both domestically and internationally that depicted Asiatic cheetahs as Iran's national pride.Footnote 30 The media's images and narratives of cheetahs are made increasingly accessible to the audience, for example, by appealing to their family lives or cuteness.Footnote 31 It is in this context that the NGO's work to protect the cheetahs and their habitat has become associated with protection of the nation.
Nora's analysis of social memory is helpful to exploring the ways in which particular objects – or things, if one follows Heidegger's definition – foster nationalistic sentiments.Footnote 32 Nora contends that an object of memory itself does not necessarily have a historical referent, but can become self-referent and relevant when implicated in the (re)constitution of a particular past and history. When an object of memory, such as the cheetah, involves history making, “improbable objects” can become relevant and legitimately considered a lieu de memoire – a site of memory.Footnote 33
In Iran, the Asiatic cheetah did not become an issue of contention at least until the late 1950s, when Iran's Hunting Club declared them protected under the law, or even as late as the early 2000s, when the DOE launched the “Conservation of the Asiatic Cheetah and its Associated Biota” project jointly with the United Nations Development Program.Footnote 34 Considering the genealogies of environmental institutions in Iran, environmentalists were initially concerned about animal extinction due to excessive hunting, and gradually expanded their areas of interest to include the cheetah. It is therefore not the history of the cheetahs themselves that procure historical significance, but the illumination of them in light of individuals’ view of Iran’s history that generates social memory and nationalistic sentiments, the aspect of which became visible through the materiality of the animal.
Case study: the national flag
I noticed that the notion of nature associated with the Iranian nation also showed itself and became pronounced through the material presence of another national symbol, the national flag. My research showed that Iran's national flag kept becoming entangled with environmental activists and the things surrounding them in everyday settings, revealing particular social histories in environmental activities.
In the spring of 2015, on a tree-planting day (ruz-e derakhtkari), I joined activities in Tehran organized by a group of environmental activists. The group consisted of roughly 100 participants, both men and women, young and old. Iran designated a day for the planting of trees during nature week (hafte-ye tabi‘i) to help increase appreciation for the qualities and benefits of trees and raise awareness of environmental resources.Footnote 35 The main purpose of tree-planting day is to get participants involved in the act of planting, giving them gain firsthand experience of environmental activities. Participation, it is hoped, will increase people's appreciation and awareness of environmental resources. At this particular event in 2015, saplings were planted to help to keep moisture in nearby mature tree roots, helping to maintain the water level of a reservoir in that region.
On the morning of tree-planting day in 2015, participants gathered around 7 a.m. at a square (meidan) in the east part of Tehran, from which the event organizers arranged carpools to the destination. These organizers were members of several different environmental NGOs, who had become friends through previous activities. As they wore fluorescent yellow bands around their elbows, the organizers were easily distinguishable from others. Following their instructions, the event kicked off around 9 a.m. with a 20-minute stretching exercise before the entire group walked to the tree-planting site, which took a further half hour.
Some aspects of the event stood out to me: Iran's national flag was conspicuously present throughout and played a part in prodding nationalistic sentiment among participants. For example, during the half-hour walk to the tree-planting site, one of the organizers led the group with a big national flag in his hand and positioned himself right by the main organizer, who occasionally stopped the group to explain what he thought was worthy of attention. The lead organizer, at one point, drew our attention to the hill across from where we stood. The hill looked partially covered by half-grown trees, with other parts seemingly bare. Gesturing toward the hill, the lead organizer described how the view differed from before the revolution. He also then pointed to the mismanagement of a nearby dam, which triggered environmental changes and eventually led to the depletion of the region's water reservoir. The NGO had attempted to restore the reservoir's water level by planting trees every year at that time. At that point, the organizer squinted, pointed to the national flag beside him, and asserted an opinion similar to those expressed at the environmental exhibition:
Iranians used to be good at water management and dealt well with water back in the time when we lived by fine principles, which were essentially environmentally friendly. Today's activities are designed to get us familiar with nature and heighten our sensibilities for it, just like in ancient times.
The way he referred to the national flag at the scene indicated that the NGO's environmental schemes were configured partially through the lens of Iran's national history, the ideal moment of which manifested in ancient times.Footnote 36
The national flag, in a way, also cued the lead organizer to speak about the NGO's environmental activities with respect to the nation as well as affected the course of action the organizers directed in the field. The organizers stopped the entire group multiple times to draw our attention to different kinds of trees and plants, emphatically introducing them as evidence of Iran's flora diversity. In contrast, as we walked through the half-ruined, barren scenery, this landscape was presented to us as an environmentally degraded site, comparable to the current state of the Iranian nation, the restoration of which would reinstate not only the landscape's material conditions but also Iran's historical and cultural heritages.Footnote 37 A volunteer staff member holding the national flag closely followed the lead organizer and stepped ahead of the group on these occasions to put the flag on display for participants. The organizers’ use of the national flag thus revealed the force of its materiality and brought to light the nation's distinct past framed within the NGO's activities. The presence of the national flag during the walk seemed conducive to developing the particular environmental narratives and activities shaped through the sentiments of nationhood.
Formalized identification with the national flag at the scenes of environmental activism also helps connect activities and participation with schemes attributable to a national community. At the offices of the environmental NGOs I visited, the national flag was usually on display at the reception desk in the entrance area. The national flag, as a national symbol, is usually also present at official events. At the opening ceremony of the aforementioned International Environmental Exhibition in 2016, for example, Iran's national flag – along with those of the DOE and the Iran International Exhibition Company – was carefully and neatly arranged in the middle, so as to be visible on the stage. Moreover, on the wall at the back of the podium, a photo of Iran's Supreme Leader with the national flag beside him hung and was kept lit while speakers gave their addresses at the podium. The presence of such a national symbol, whether its public display is required by law or not, crucially constitutes the milieu in which environmental activities are carried out and activists call for participation in public places. The regular appearance of this national symbol is a distinctive characteristic of environmental activism that draws and incorporates Iranian-ness into its activities.
Given that the national flag is on ubiquitous display in public spaces in Iran, however, the extent to which the flag elicits such nationalistic sentiments in the field can be better understood by considering what Stewart calls “ordinary affects.” In her words, the presence of the national flag shapes participants’ “capacities to affect and to be affected that give everyday life the quality of a continual motion of relations, scenes, contingencies, and emergences.”Footnote 38 It is not just the flag's symbolic meaning that arouses nationalistic sentiments among participants at a particular moment, but also their capacities and the intensity of such sentiments accumulated through a circuit of connections animating and acting upon them.
From the perspective of ordinary affects, these sentiments store their resonance within and emerge against the background of a network of national flags found in everyday settings.Footnote 39 After years of fieldwork in Iran, I noticed the omnipresence and visibility of the national flag in public spaces, including parks, squares, sideroads, overpasses, business offices, and schools. Everyday scenes and settings in which one encounters the national flag register their “intensities—regularly, intermittently, urgently, or as a slight shudder.”Footnote 40 In Iran, parks are considered popular nature-associated sites where, many informants noted, visitors retreat from the tiresome human world and gain serenity amid green spaces. At major parks in Tehran, such as Park-e Mellat, gigantic national flags are neatly lined up in a row at entrance areas. Visitors – whether young, old, male, or female – spend mornings and evenings walking, chatting, picnicking, or playing sports in the park. Squares, which usually contain national flags, constitute central units of Iranian cities, functioning as points of reference through which many Iranians organize their everyday activities, such as shopping, meetings, or just getting from one place to another. Street overpass banners are banal public displays that drivers and passengers pass every day while riding in vehicles or walking. The banners show business-related ads for new products or services and religious slogans by the Supreme Leader or Imams featuring Iran's national flag or its colors (white, red, and green). The national flag is also visibly on display on highways, for drivers and passengers to see, especially during national holidays.
In Iran, it is in these everyday settings that seemingly dissociated places and scenes come together to “amass the resonance in things,” generating nationalistic sentiments that also percolate through and unfold in environmental discourses and practices.Footnote 41 A national flag is thus not merely a piece of fabric that represents a nation, but also a material thing that elicits particular emotions and, thus, moves and is moved by those who consider themselves to be constituents of the nation. A national flag, in this sense, functions both as a symbolic place and the embodied performance of that place.Footnote 42
Conclusion
Iran has faced increasing environmental challenges since the war against Iraq, and many organizations – both governmental and non-governmental – have initiated environmental protections in recent decades. This article examined the cultural dimensions of environmental initiatives the author encountered in the field by looking at the distinct aspects of materiality at work. The analysis revealed and focused on a distinctive notion of nature reflective of the social histories at play in the unfolding of environmental initiatives in Iran, as many of my interlocuters found this notion relevant to and incorporated in their projects. Research findings suggest that, in addition to the scientific concept of nature commonly employed to systematically understand and manage the environment by Iran's key institutions, another notion of nature – drawing on the national history of Iran – is also prominent among activists, providing them with a critical framework for organizing environmental activities.
In the field, the Asiatic cheetah and national flag stood out as powerfully influential national symbols in the politics of environment in Iran, and thus became the focus of research inquiries. The investigation showed that environmentalists and non-experts in the field are involved with these symbols in ways that encourage them to view the nature they are attempting to protect as comparable and associated with the Iranian nation. The Asiatic cheetah is seen as an endangered animal uniquely relatable to the Iranian nation, which many now consider to be in a state of decadence that they feel responsible to reinstate to a state of prosperity that reached its height in ancient times. Iran's national flag also helps to disclose such understandings, which also frame other environmental activities. The national flag's presence in public spaces is conducive to developing Iranians’ capacities to affect and be affected by nationalistic sentiments, conditioning environmental activities to occur in a particular manner. The present study demonstrates that the force of materiality enacted through these national symbols variously prompted my interlocuters to regard the current problems of “nature” as relatable to the state of Iran and its current problems.
With lingering environmental problems remaining unresolved in Iran, the government has recently attempted to diversify its strategies. The government's call for Islamic ethics, in addition to expanding environmental education programs, to raise environmental awareness is one such an example,, requiring an analytical framework that encompasses the materiality of things and non-humans.Footnote 43 Such an approach, as demonstrated here, is helpful to capturing the complexity of multi-dimensional aspects of environmental initiatives in Iran and elsewhere.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Blake Atwood, Younes Saramifar, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and valuable suggestions on earlier versions of this article. I am also grateful to Kusha Sefat for his leadership in bringing together researchers from various backgrounds and deepening conversations about materiality in contemporary Iran from a broader perspective. Funding support for this research came from Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science).
