Imagining Elsewhere: English, Aspiration, and Quiet Resistance in Private Language Academies of Mashhad, Iran

Abstract

This dissertation examines private English language education in Mashhad, Iran, as a site of aspiration, resistance, and identity formation under the ideological constraints of the Islamic Republic. Through five chapters, I draw on online ethnography (2022-24), archival research, and my lived experience there as an English language learner and teacher (1992-2015) to explore how English instruction, while framed by state officials as a threat, thrives in the private sector. Drawing on discursive and spatial analysis and theories of liminality, performativity, and everyday resistance, I argue that private language academies are relatively liberal zones where dominant ideologies are suspended and alternative identities are rehearsed. The spatial dynamics of commuting to these academies, engagement with international English textbooks, the pedagogy of intercultural critical thinking through class discussions, and preparation for international tests all contrast with the obedience-oriented pedagogy in the national-curriculum system. These experiences pave a learners’ path to political awareness, secular modernity, social mobility, individual autonomy, and global citizenship. Private English teachers’ speech, clothing, and pedagogy constitute their embodied performances of global imaginaries, positioning them as guides of transnational aspiration, cultural capital, and alternative moral orders. In a society where the state continues to censor and ideologically engineer public life, the everyday practices of private English teachers and students present quiet acts of subversion. This research reveals how language education becomes a site for negotiating the “otherwise” and “elsewhere”—within, but also beyond the Islamic Republic’s anti-imperialist effort to delegitimize global connectedness.