Dimorphic diasporas: Assembling identity, community belonging, and collective action among Iranians in London

二态散居论文阐明了一种二态范式——游牧和定居状态的动态混合（Ibn Khaldun, 2005, [1377]; Deleuze & Guattari, 1987）——在这种范式中，流动性只是移民可用的生活策略之一，而不是主要的分析概念。在这样做的过程中，本论文既受到流动性范式的启发，也提供了对流动性范式的纠正，流动性范式有助于将移民和城市研究从“久坐偏见”中转移出来（Cresswell, 2006; Urry, 2007）。本文旨在理解和探索在伊朗中产阶级跨国社会中积极集体行动的可能性。它分析了伦敦（及其他地区）的10个（主要是）伊朗移民群体。通过阅读这些组合，我已经到达并阐述了一个二态范式，作为一个跨历史的分析概念，它借鉴了伊朗高原历史上普遍存在的游牧和定居倾向的元素。因此，我的论文提出了一个新的概念框架：(1)适应游牧社会和定居社会的混合；(2)将非国家群体的微观政治与国家背景的宏观政治联系起来。本文借用了参与行动研究、自动民族志和网络志的方法来研究我的朋友和家庭网络的日常生活，以及我参与的几个集体行动论坛。这些网络并不像实地站点那样被理解，而是被情感强度和物质流动结合在一起的临时集合，这也创造了它们的紧急机构。在运用这一范式的过程中，本文揭示了部分“不稳定”的伊朗移民生活的微观政治：它使用游牧-定居启发式来追踪群体中信任和亲属关系的产生，并揭示了他们在集体行动中的新兴机构的潜力。二态论与超越身份政治的团结创造相结合，以增加其进步政治的潜力，并避免等级制度、排他性或本质主义的结晶。因此，它使行动研究者不仅可以研究，而且还可以试验（未）确定的存在和成为模式的进步政治潜力。

The Dimorphic diasporas thesis articulates a dimorphic paradigm - a dynamic mix of nomad and sedentary states (Ibn Khaldun, 2005, [1377]; Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) - in which mobility is merely one of the life strategies available to transmigrants and not the primary analytic concept. In doing so, this thesis is both inspired by - and offers a corrective to - the mobilities paradigm, which has been instrumental in shifting migration and urban studies away from their 'sedentary bias' (Cresswell, 2006; Urry, 2007). The thesis aims to understand and explore the possibilities for positive collective action among middling, transnational Iranians. It analyses ten assemblages of (mostly) Iranian transmigrants in London (and beyond). Through reading these assemblages, I have arrived at and articulated a dimorphic paradigm as a transhistorical analytic concept that draws on elements of nomadic and sedentary tendencies prevalent in the history of the Iranian plateau. My thesis thereby proposes a new conceptual framework that (1) accommodates a mixture of nomad and sedentary socialities and (2) relates a micro-politics of non-state assemblages to a macro-politics of state contexts. The thesis borrows methods from Participatory Action Research, auto-ethnographic and netnographic approaches to examine the everyday lives of my networks of friends and family, and several forums of collective action I was involved with. These networks are understood not so much as field sites, but as temporary assemblages held together by affective intensities and material flows, which also create their emergent agencies. In working with this paradigm, this thesis reveals the micro-politics of partially 'unsettled' Iranian migrants' lives: it uses nomad-sedentary heuristics to trace the creation of trust and kinship in assemblages and reveals the potentials of their emergent agencies in collective action. Dimorphism engages with the creation of solidarities beyond identity politics in order to increase their potentials for progressive politics and warding off the crystallisation of hierarchy, exclusion, or essentialism. It therefore allows action researchers not only to study, but also experiment with, the progressive political potentials of (un)settled modes of being and becoming.