Independentist narrative among diasporan Rojhelatî (Eastern) Kurds: practices of transborder citizenship, dynamics and lines of contestation

This article argues that Rojhelatî (Eastern) Kurdish diasporans, shaped by recent political transformations, have developed an independentist narrative that both rejects and deconstructs the political, territorial, cultural, and institutional foundations of the Iranian nation-state – often framed as ‘Iranianness’. Simultaneously, this narrative challenges established Kurdish political organizations for their ambiguity and shortcomings regarding the broader Kurdish nationalist movement. Acting as transborder citizens, Rojhelatî Kurdish activists and scholars mobilize the intellectual and material resources available in their host societies to articulate and promote a nationalist diasporic discourse centered on Eastern Kurdistan. This discourse seeks to persuade Kurdish political organizations to move beyond Iran-oriented federalist and ‘brotherhood’-based rhetoric toward a clearer independence-oriented position -one that calls for a rupture with Iranian colonialism and enables stateless Eastern Kurds to pursue political and national sovereignty, ultimately envisioning the creation of a Kurdish state.