Sheida Besozzi’s thesis defence: "Conceptualising identity, nostalgia and resistance: activism by the Iranian diaspora in Spain (1979-2024)"

On 5 May, Sheida Besozzi's thesis, Conceptualising identity, nostalgia and resistance: activism by the Iranian diaspora in Spain (1979-2024), was defended at Zubiria Etxea.

Besozzi completed the PhD Programme "Development Studies". Her director was Karlos Pérez de Armiño and her thesis is attached to Hegoa Institute. The members of the examining board were: Imanol Zubero (from the UPV/EHU), Marina Díaz (from the University of Deusto) and Claire Elizabeth Grace Wright (from the University of Ulster).

The grade obtained by Besozzi is an Outstanding Cum Laude and International Thesis Mention with the option of an Extraordinary Prize.

Thesis summary

This thesis has analysed the discourses and strategies of resistance and solidarity of Iranians in Spain, in their transnational social and political connections with civil resistance struggles related to socio-political conflicts in Iran, from 1979 until 2024. 

This investigation has placed attention on three sites of concern, seeing them as interrelated: 

1. 1. the nostalgia, memory and trauma related to the Iranian political scene felt from a distance,
      
   2. the construction and negotiation regarding home and belonging, and
      
   3. practices of resistance and solidarity in the diaspora. 

This study has centred on the stories of migrants that left Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and shows the connection of this diaspora to socio-political conflicts in the homeland. This work has included the analysis of 39 semi-structured interviews carried out to first and second-generation Iranians in Spain between 2019 and 2024. 

The main conclusions of this work demonstrate that

1. 1. civil resistance struggles in Iran have shown a continuity since the XIX century until today,
      

   2. the Iranian diaspora in the West has been supporting Iranian civil society during civil resistance struggles since the first wave of migration, and

   3. the Iranian diaspora in Spain is politically fragmented, in the same way as in other countries, and supports civil resistance struggles in Iran via human rights advocacy.

Other publications by the author

Other related works by the author can be consulted, such as the following: 

• “Nostalgia and solidarity entanglements: Iranian women in Spain narrating resistance”, The Contemporary Reader of Feminist International Relations, Goetze, Catherine and Khushi Singh Rathore (Eds.), Routledge (forthcoming).
• “Transnational Migration and Diaspora Studies: a state of the art”, Cuadernos de Trabajo / Lan-Koadernoak Hegoa, no. 98, Hegoa, 2025.
  

• “El papel de las diásporas en la construcción de paz y en la defensa de los derechos humanos”, Boletín de Recursos de Información, n.º 54, Hegoa, 2024. 

• “Defensa de los derechos humanos: una mirada a las ONGs de derechos humanos de la diáspora iraní y la lucha por la igualdad (1979-2022)” en Anderez Belategi, M. (coord.) La libertad de expresión en tiempos convulsos, Tirant Lo Blanch, Valencia, 2023.

• “¿Ha crecido una flor en el infierno? Leyendo la historia moderna de Iran a través de la participación noviolenta de las mujeres en la lucha política”, Relaciones Internacionales, n.º  51, 2022.

See the thesis section of this website.