The Identity Politics of a Body of Water: On Persian Gulf Studies in Iran  (©Background)

A Distant View

The establishment of the field “Persian Gulf Studies” and the creation of universities and research institutes bearing this title in Tehran or in Iran’s southern coastal provinces dates back to the first half of the 1990s. At that time, during the period known as Reconstruction, the state sought to place the region’s resources more fully at the service of national economic growth through the development of marine sciences and investments in technologies of oil industry.

These universities, however, were intended not only to produce the technical and engineering knowledge required by the oil industry, fishery and other resource extractions, but also to help integrate the Arab populations residing in the area into Iran’s post-revolution society. The Revolution and the war with Iraq (1980–1988), had both intensified perceptions of threats posed by global powers in this strategic oil-export waterway and disrupted the livelihoods and cross-border exchanges of Arab and non-Arab indigenous communities around the Persian Gulf, thereby exacerbating grievances.

Economic Reconstruction driven by investment in the oil industry and its maritime transport required a degree of integration of local communities into new activities and depended on improved relations with neighboring states. Diplomatic initiatives aimed at improving long-troubled relations were launched on both sides of the Gulf; from the outset, however, they were overshadowed by the persistence of regional conflicts including Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the United Arab Emirates’ territorial claims over three Iranian islands (United Nations, 1992), and, later, the campaign to change the name “Persian Gulf” in the National Geographic World Atlas in 2004. These developments had significant effects on how Persian Gulf Studies was defined and practiced within universities and research institutes.

A review of the curriculum and research programs of Persian Gulf departments and research institutes reveals three persistent types of programs and lines of inquiry: (1) programs focused on producing development-oriented knowledge for Iran’s resource economy; (2) programs devoted to historical and political research addressing neighboring Arab states’ territorial claims, border consolidation, and the challenges of identity politics; and (3) programs designed to catch up with conventional international relations, politics of energy, and evolving field of Gulf Studies in the Arab world. This review examines the establishment and expansion of these three major teaching and research orientations and the institutional frameworks created to support them, while also addressing the research trends that have emerged on their margins.

Provincial Universities and Developmental Research Agenda for Persian Gulf

In the mid-1970s, two major universities and a number of research centers were established in Iran’s southern provinces, taking on two main responsibilities: improving the technical and scientific infrastructure for resource extraction (including oil and gas as well as the development of fisheries), and providing the required training for expanding social services for locals and the populations associated with these activities. In the aftermath of the war with Iraq, the expansion of oil and gas production fields was framed as a key strategy for lifting the national economy out of recession. Over the next decade, a mix of national and foreign investments came to frame Iran’s eastern coastline as a major energy production hub. The establishment of this energy hub and the exploitation of gas reserves were presented as emblematic of the post-revolutionary regime’s success in articulating a model of statecraft that aligned development and social welfare with its ideological project. Within this approach, expectations that universities would produce and develop and circulate nationalist narratives to counter the territorial claims of neighboring states were pushed to the margins, while the generation of expertise on international and regional politics to underpin diplomatic practice with southern neighbors was assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and affiliated universities in Tehran.

Hormozgan University was established in 1992 in Bandar Abbas with some technical and engineering programs to improve the technical and scientific infrastructure needed by the oil, gas, and fisheries industries, as well as secondary school teacher training programs to provide social services for disadvantaged local populations and the new industrial workforce.

By emphasizing both engineering and health and basic education infrastructure, this curriculum embodied the government’s vision for the development of higher education in provincial Iran at the time. Hormozgan University has maintained this structure, and today includes seven faculties, five in technical and engineering fields, basic sciences, marine sciences and technology, agriculture and natural resources, and chemical and petroleum engineering, as well as two faculties in the humanities and in management, economics, and accounting. It operates two branch campuses on Qeshm Island and in Minab, and it hosts three research institutes that appear to concentrate on specific regions or localities: the Hormoz Studies and Research Institute, the Makran Studies Research Institute, and the Regional Hara Forests Research Institute. Although little information is available regarding the type of research conducted at the Hormoz and Makran institutes, information published on the university’s website indicates that it produces seven academic quarterlies in various fields, two of which are in English, though their intended audience remains unclear. The two quarterlies Aquatic Ecology and Environmental Erosion contain material related to regional environmental issues and have been published consistently over the past four years. The university also publishes a literary quarterly, which has appeared relatively regularly, whereas its quarterly Participation and Social Development was issued only between 2015 and 2018 and rarely includes material about the cities of Hormozgan—an indication of the scarcity of local social research.

It is worth noting that Bandar Abbas is home to the region’s oldest marine life research institute, originally established in 1982 as the Oman Sea Fisheries Research Center, with the goal of studying marine aquatic species in the area. With the expansion of its activities and facilities, the center was upgraded in 2002 (1381), with authorization from the Ministry of Science, to the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea Ecology Research Institute. This institute, which presents itself as Iran’s leading marine science research center, focuses its research on ensuring the conditions for sustainable aquatic production.

Bushehr’s Persian Gulf University was established in 1992 with programs in civil engineering and mechanical engineering, and, like Hormozgan University, it initially had no specific regional studies agenda. Later, a research institute of the same name was established within the university, which in recent years has conducted research not only in applied, fundamental, biotechnology, and environmental studies, but also in history. The institute has also undertaken research in sustainable development and urban planning.

During this period, in addition to these two universities, one of the first branches of the Iranology Foundation (IF) was established in Bushehr. Founded in 1997 by Hassan Habibi, one of the architects of the Islamic Republic’s cultural policy during the reformist government, and operating under the Presidency, the Foundation’s objectives were to honor Iran’s cultural luminaries, increase awareness of the historical background, civilization, and culture of Iran, and strengthen the pillars of national identity. The rapid establishment of the Bushehr branch of the IF, following the founding of its main center in Tehran, supports the assumption that the coastal region was a priority for the study of indigenous culture and architecture, and that these studies played a role in cultural diplomacy with neighboring Arab countries. However, the branch’s contribution to the Persian Gulf Quarterly, initiated in 2014 and published regularly until 2021 (and intermittently thereafter), remains unstudied.

Researching History to Engage Political and Territorial Claims in the Persian Gulf

Since the 2000s, a trend has emerged in studying the Iranian identity of the Persian Gulf and the historical naming of the region in historical documents. The primary aim of this research has been to counter the hegemonic narratives of Arab states by emphasizing Iran’s long-standing historical presence and power in the region. These studies have attracted not only academic historians but also government researchers and policymakers in the fields of diplomacy and military affairs. The organization of numerous festivals and conferences on the Persian Gulf can largely be attributed to the extensive collaboration between these governmental institutions and university-based history researchers. The History Department of the University of Tehran is the most prominent academic group active in this field. Since its establishment as an independent program at the university in 1963, it was active in founding Iranology centers outside the country, beginning with Beirut. The department was also a pioneer in advancing Persian Gulf studies from the perspective of identity and territorial politics.

In 2004, when the government sought to designate a day in the Iranian political calendar as Persian Gulf Day, the department’s faculty proposed commemorating the day of the Portuguese defeat on Hormuz Island during the Safavid period. In 2009, responding to state demands for heritage-focused, nationalist knowledge, the department introduced a master’s in Persian Gulf Studies, with core courses like Ethnic Geography of the Peoples of the Persian Gulf, History of Economic Transformations in the Persian Gulf with an Emphasis on Oil, and The Emergence of Global Powers in the Persian Gulf. Over the last two decades, faculty members of this department have been instrumental in organizing Persian Gulf-related conferences. Their publications, including History of Migration of Peoples in the Persian Gulf (Vosoughi, 2001/1380) and Depictions of the Persian Gulf in Historical Maps (Faridi Majid et al., 2007/1386), have established themselves as key resources for research and instruction in the field.

Bushehr University, as noted, expanded its History Department with a master’s program in 2006, amid heightened territorial claims over Iranian islands and debates over the Persian Gulf’s name. In 2009, it introduced a master’s in Persian Gulf Studies, generating numerous theses and scholarly publications to date. Notable publications by the faculty of this program include Karun Navigation (Saeedinia, 2018/1397) and Economic and Political History of the Persian Gulf during the Afsharid and Zand Periods (Asadpour, 2023/1402), which examine the political and commercial developments of the region in the early modern period. The Bushehr School (Asadpour, 2024/1403) explores the urban culture of the region and depicts patterns of tolerance and coexistence among the people of Bushehr, drawing on literary and narrative sources.

Persian Gulf Studies with a Focus on International and Regional Politics

Shiraz University, as the nearest “top-tier university” to the coasts of the Persian Gulf and Makran, has in recent years sought to become a hub for Persian Gulf and Makran coastal studies. To this end, in 2012 it established the Persian Gulf Strategic Studies Center (PGSSC), which later expanded to include research on the Makran coast.

Affiliated with the Faculty of Law and Political Science, the PGSSC center is distinguished from conventional historical approaches to the Persian Gulf, which serve identity politics, by its primary focus on contemporary regional politics and international relations concerning the Gulf. It comprises eleven research groups, covering major thematic areas of the field. This includes: (1) Strategic and Security Studies, (2) Energy Security and Diplomacy Studies, (3) Makran Coastal Development Studies, (4) Political Economy Studies, (5) Political Sociology Studies, (6) Interdisciplinary Studies, (7) Cultural and Social Studies, (8) Political Thought Studies, (9) Environmental and Natural Resources Studies, (10) Information and Communication Technology Studies, and (11) International Law Studies.

The PGSSC center has engaged with various universities in Asia and Europe, held lectures by Iranian studies scholars working on the region, and organized specialized seminars on Gulf politics and politics of major powers toward Persian Gulf. These initiatives distinguish Shiraz University from other institutions engaged in conventional Persian Gulf history studies in Iran—a venture likely facilitated by university’s extensive connections with coastal provinces and countries of the southern Persian Gulf. The PGSSC’s website acknowledges that Persian Gulf studies in Arab countries have developed much faster than Iran and the need to transform the status co in Iran and move beyond repetitive conventional research in this field. The center publishes the Makran and Persian Gulf Quarterly, an academic journal that requires separate examination.

Emphasis on universities in southern Iran or on Persian Gulf studies programs does not imply the other universities do not engage with research in the region. Among these, the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies in Tehran, affiliated with the Ministry of Science, deserves mention. Although it does not have an independent center or research group dedicated to the Persian Gulf, it has published articles in its conferences and journals on topics such as the civilizational heritage of the Persian Gulf and National Identity (Haghparast & Mohammadi, 2023/1402), Cultural Links with East Asia in the Zar Ritual (Bahrani-Pour & Zarei, 2023/1402), and the Origins of Migration of Khonsir Tribe along the Northern Coasts of the Persian Gulf (Saeedinia & Abyari, 2022/1401).

In addition to university centers engaged in “Persian Gulf Studies,” governmental and private think tanks are also active in this field. Some of them run widely followed Telegram channels on scientific, technological, and economic issues aligned with the state’s recent policy of supporting the development of “non-governmental,” knowledge-based institutions which carry the name of Persian Gulf studies. Some enjoy a significant international presence, and their research focuses not only on economics but also on branding the Persian Gulf and promoting economic and political diplomacy in Eurasia. One example is the Persian Gulf Studies Institute^[1], established in the late 2010s in cooperation with the Ministry of Industry, Mine, and Trade, which is active in expanding economic activities in the region. Other examples include Iranian Studies of the Sea of Pars^[2] or the Persian Gulf Studies Center^[3], institutions founded or supported with the help of former university professors or former members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which work on the region’s history or oppose the spread of alternative (“false”) names for the Persian Gulf in international geographic atlases.

The Biennial Persian Gulf Conference and Other Related Events

Seminars and meetings related to the Persian Gulf are typically held on commemorative occasions, such as National Persian Gulf Day in April 29, the fiftieth anniversary of Iran’s sovereignty over the three islands, or in honor of scholars in the field of Persian Gulf studies. The International Biennial Persian Gulf Conference, initiated and organized by the History Department of the University of Tehran, is the largest and most prominent scholarly event in this field. Held annually from 2008 to 2025, the conference is largely devoted to the production of historical and political knowledge aimed at addressing the territorial claims of neighboring Arab states. It is organized with the collaboration and hosting support of several institutions, including the House of Humanities Scholars, the Nations Diplomacy Think Tank, the Association for Cultural Studies, and the National Library and Archives of Iran.

The organizers have published the papers presented at the first five conferences as edited volumes. In the introduction to The Persian Gulf: Culture and Civilization, edited by Vosoughi (2024/1403) and comprising papers from the inaugural conference held in 2008, the aim of the conference is described as providing: “this azure expanse of water, along with its coasts and hinterlands, has long been the birthplace of a significant part of Iranian culture and civilization and even today—despite the assaults and distortions, largely carried out by southern neighbors with the aim of erasing or falsifying its historical and civilizational identity—it continues to contain a hidden treasure and an immense heritage within itself.”

The edited volumes of the subsequent conferences demonstrate the incorporation of a wider and more diverse range of subjects. For instance, the volume from the fourth conference (Ahmadi et al., 2018/1397) includes articles on urban planning, indigenous rituals of the Persian Gulf, and international politics. The fifth conference’s scientific committee included faculty from Peking University, universities in Austria, Frankfurt, Tokyo, and Sultan Qaboos University of Oman, and featured a larger number of Iranian studies scholars than in earlier conferences. The conference’s thematic focus was particularly directed toward maritime culture and practices. Its historical contributions include studies grounded in archival sources from Russia, as well as media materials from Arab countries and other regions (Ahmadi et al., 2025/1404).

International collaboration in organizing scholary events on Persian Gulf is a trend in recent years, as “First International Conference on the History, Culture, and Civilization of the Persian Gulf” organized by the Persian Gulf University in Bushehr, History Department, in 2021. The event was supported by the Iranology Foundation, the National Library and Archives of Iran, the Ports and Maritime Organization of Bushehr Province, and other institutions. The editors of the volume The Persian Gulf: Historical Foundations of Economic, Social, and Cultural Relations (Elhiyari & Saeedinia, 2023/1402) report that they selected 50 papers from a total of 110 Persian articles, 17 Arabic, and 3 English contributions.

Although most papers in this collection focus on conventional historical analyses of economic, cultural, and political relations in the Persian Gulf from the Achaemenid to the Pahlavi periods, several papers examine themes that fall outside the conventional historical framework. For instance, the collection includes studies such as “The Impact of African Slaves on the Culture of the Persian Gulf in the Nineteenth Century,” “The Culture of Journalism in the Southern Regions of the Persian Gulf,” “A Review of Mutual Interactions Between State and Nation,” and “A Study of the State of Iran’s Public Diplomacy in the Persian Gulf,” the last of which provides a critical evaluation of the government’s neglect of regional developmentsTop of Form

Final Thoughts

As this brief review of programs and research policies in Persian Gulf studies and their major developments since the early 1990s indicates, the intersection of numerous factors has shaped the various lines of inquiry and modes of knowledge production in this field. As discussed, foreign threats and territorial claims by other states prompted different responses from successive governments, but they were instrumental in driving the growth and expansion of historical studies oriented toward producing a nationalist narrative about the region. The shift from programs primarily focused on the needs of Iran’s oil and extractive economy during the establishment of provincial institutions in the 1990s to the development of history departments and programs a decade later supports this argument.

During the post-war period, Iran’s “Construction” government, with the objective of increasing oil and gas production to support economic recovery, endeavored to reshape the militarized, conflict-prone image of the Gulf through diplomatic initiatives. The Reformist government, in response to territorial claims, initiated a cultural research agenda by establishing a branch of the Iranology Foundation in Bushehr, highlighting local culture and notable figures. Nonetheless, the project of reinterpreting history to assert the Iranian heritage of the Gulf, despite variations in emphasis, differences in scholarly perspectives, and the range of actors promoting it, has continued to exert a significant influence on Persian Gulf studies.

The programs focused on studying the Persian Gulf through the lens of international and regional politics, beyond oil and territorial claims, is a more recent academic agenda, primarily followed by individual scholars, some scholarly associations in Tehran and group initiatives at Shiraz University. While the impact of this new scholarly trend is evident in teaching, research, and the organization of conferences, an academic program that studies the social transformation of the region from a critical perspective remains entirely absent. In this context, the rapid and extensive transformation of the coastal provinces—driven by large-scale oil investment, securitization, and competition among state agencies to claim a share of this expansive domain—has been largely overlooked in existing research agendas and events.

References

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