Abstract

This article examines nostalgia and its political force around the Zayandehrud River in central Iran. Once seen as perennial and life-giving, the river is now dry for much of the year, turning its absent flow into an object of longing. This reflects a broader "restoration nostalgia" in political ecology—seeking not only a healthy nature but also a reconstructed socio-natural order. Nostalgia for the Zayandehrud has shaped a strong social movement, by forging collective identity and mobilizing demands for water rights. Yet while protests politicized water, nostalgia also depoliticized it by projecting a utopian image of an ahistorical, conflict-free community, reinforcing the current deadlock of restoration efforts. Building on archival research and ethnography, the article revisits two key pillars of this nostalgia: the tumār, imagined as a rule of peaceful and just water distribution, and the reconstruction of a traditional weir, celebrated as an instance of self-contained collective participation. It first traces how a nostalgic narrative of the river was gradually constructed, and then, through archival history, deconstructs the very past that nostalgia claims. The aim is not to privilege archival history over nostalgia, but to read them together: nostalgia's imaginative force can still serve progressive ecological politics. By highlighting the antagonistic history of the Zayandehrud, today's protests can be understood not as noise but as part of a longer trajectory of water struggles, opening space for more plural nostalgias and potential pathways beyond deadlock.

Keywords: Zayandehrud, Iran, nostalgia, river restoration, environmental politics, social movements

How to Cite:

Talebi Eskandari, S., (2026) “Longing for a flow: Nostalgia, restoration, and politics in the Zayandehrud River, Iran”, Journal of Political Ecology 33(1): 10256. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.10256