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Bayramzadeh R, Ziaie M, Mirshafie S M. (2025). Analysis of the Discourse of National Identity in Tehran Murals (Case Study: Tehran Murals from 1376 to 1400). JIC. 9(2), 165-190. doi:10.61882/jic.9.2.402
URL: http://jih-tabriziau.ir/article-1-402-en.html

In post-revolutionary Iran, after the three discourses of revolution, war, and construction, with the central signifiers of collective action, the issuance of revolution, and legitimacy, a new discourse emerged in mural painting that was influenced by religious values on the one hand and dependent on freedom-seeking values on the other. The growth of individual freedoms, pluralism, and attention to the concept of Iranian civilization led to the expansion of the formal tools and content of mural painting in style, materials, and themes. In this way, broader concepts of the components and dimensions of national identity emerged in mural painting, which can be examined and analyzed in the form of a discourse of national identity. The main question of the present study is what are the grounds for the formation of the discourse of national identity in contemporary mural paintings in Tehran? The present study is a descriptive-analytical one that was conducted using the discourse analysis method of Laclau and Mouffe. The statistical population of the present study is all the murals in Tehran since 1997, totaling four thousand works, of which 200 works were selected non-randomly and purposefully. The findings of the study show that the floating signifiers of "people", "ideology", "painting", "calligraphy", "symbols and signs", "national heroes" and "national elements" in the semantic system of this discourse, after othering, were highlighted with new significations, and their significations in the three previous discourses were marginalized in the field of discourse, and the equivalence chains of competing discourses were broken apart. Then, the highlighted signifiers with the newly emerging floating signifiers of "epic themes", "Iranian customs", "unusual materials", "abstraction" were articulated around the central signifier of "national identity" and formed an equivalence chain. As these signifiers became hegemonic, the discourse of national identity in Tehran's murals also became hegemonic.