Lines of Enquiry

This enquiry explores the intersection of history, territory, and international relations, examining how the past is mobilised in statecraft and diplomacy and how international relations reframe historical narratives to create heritage. Key themes include territorial disputes, cultural claims, and civilizational fault lines. It investigates how border-straddling heritages influence soft power, diplomacy, and civilizational boundaries. By deploying the concept of heritage-border complexes alongside ideas like liminality, hybridity, and transnationalism, the research provides a theoretical framework for understanding the role of heritage in geopolitical dynamics.

Published outcomes include:

• Mozaffari, A., & Akbar, A. (2024). Heritage conservation and civilisational competition in the South Caucasus: the Blue Mosque of Yerevan and the Govhar Agha Mosque in Shusha. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2024.2393612. 
• Mozaffari, A., & Barry, J. (2023). Heritage Destruction in the Caucasus With a Specific Focus on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict. In The Routledge Handbook of Heritage Destruction (pp. 333-342). Routledge. (Also available at https://bit.ly/3B4k0g5).
• Mozaffari, A., and Akbar, A. (2022). Iran’s soft power in Azerbaijan: shifting cultural dynamics in the post-Soviet era. International Journal of Cultural Policy, pp. 1–19. Doi:  https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2022.2135706.
• Mozaffari, A. and Barry, J., 2022. Heritage and territorial disputes in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict: a comparative analysis of the carpet museums of Baku and Shusha. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 28(3), pp. 318–340. This is open-access and available at https://bit.ly/389IRkN.

Collaborators include:

Professor David C. Harvey, Professor Jeremy C. A. Smith, Dr Ali Akbar, and Dr James Barry.

This research examines the role of the built environment, particularly design, in shaping the relationship between the past and present, thereby contributing to the creation of heritage within Iran’s developmental context. The core argument posits that development projects in societies like Iran provoke shifts in historical consciousness, which, in turn, lead to new cultural expressions and the emergence of heritage.

Published outcomes include:

• Westbrook, N., Mozaffari, A. (2024). Degrees of Peripherality: The Rhetoric of Architecture in Late Twentieth-Century Iran. In: Pizzi, K., Gefter Wondrich, R. (eds) Rethinking Peripheral Modernisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35546-2_9.
• Mozaffari, A., & Westbrook, N. (2022). In search of continuity with the past: Houshang Seyhoun’s Ferdowsi mausoleum complex as cultural landscape. International Journal of Environmental Studies, 79(2), 298-319.  https://bit.ly/3kTDAjN)
•  Mozaffari, A., & Westbrook, N. (2020). Development, Architecture, and the Formation of Heritage in Late Twentieth-Century Iran: A Vital Past. Manchester University Press (online edn, Manchester Scholarship Online, 20 May 2021), https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526150165  (Also translated into Persian).

Collaborators include:

Professor Nigel Westbrook, Dr Ali Javid.

Related to the above lines of enquiry, this area of research is concerned with the ideological import of the past in the formation of the discourse of Islamic Architecture. 

It has had multiple outputs in English and Persian, the latest being a Persian article in the journal Tabl (No. 7, January 2022) entitled:  Global exchanges, the Cold War and probing the meaning of a contemporary Islamic Architecture 

This project, initiated as a collaboration between Ali Mozaffari and Tod Jones, seeks to explore the relationship between social movements and cultural heritage. It addresses a key methodological and theoretical gap in critical heritage research: the systematic analysis of collective action in the production and contestation of heritage. Our approach draws on theories advanced by Professor James Jasper, providing a robust framework for understanding the dynamics of social movements in shaping heritage. 

Published outcomes included a number of journal articles and an edited volume. 

Sponsoring bodies:

• Curtin University
• Australia-Asia-Pacific Institute (AAPI-Curtin University)
• Research Unit for the Study of Societies in Change (RUSSIC-Curtin University)
• Alfred Deakin Institute (ADI, Deakin University)
• Australian Research Council (ARC)

Collaborators included:

Professor James M. Jasper and Professor Tod Jones. 

This line of enquiry follows the formation and contestation of heritage in modern Iran. The research, grounded in critical heritage studies, draws on interdisciplinary theories and methodologies from anthropology, museum studies, architecture, urban studies, and history. The outputs have pioneered interpretative studies on several key areas: the National Museum of Iran (in Forming National Identity in Iran), the relationship between heritage and place with a particular focus on Pasargadae World Heritage Site (in World Heritage in Iran), the architecture of site museums, specifically at Pasargadae (also in World Heritage in Iran), heritage activism and NGOs (in multiple articles and book chapters), and the formation of the idea of Iran as a framework for tourism (in a book chapter). Further contributions can be found here. 

The relationship between image, especially moving image, and the uses of the past in the present (thus heritage) is significant, yet there is a shortage of a systematic approach to the topic. This area of investigation seeks to fill this gap. 

Published outcomes include:

•  Mozaffari, A. and Gonzalez Zarandona, J.A., 2021. Screening Heritage: Critical Heritage and Film Through the Example of “Taq Kasra: Wonder of Architecture” Documentary. Heritage & Society, 14(2-3), pp. 139–159.  

A pre-print of the article is available from https://bit.ly/3FKo0Rr

Link to full issue online: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/yhso20/14/2-3

Collaborators include:

Dr José Antonio González Zarandona and Mr Pejman Akbarzadeh.