Haunted Temporalities: Ghosts and the geohauntologies of the Iran-Iraq war and the production of the nation-state through martyrdom

The Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) left enduring imprints on Iranian history, identity, landscape, and memory. The geographic remains and memories of the War can be easily observed in city landscapes, grave sites, museums, schoolbooks, city murals, films, and street names. But this paper seeks to geolocate the invisible traces of the War in a way that make an appearance today and how they are reproduced by the state. In this article, I argue for a reinterpretation of the Iran-Iraq War, its affective absence, and its geohaunting of a society's collective temporality. Through an ethnographic analysis of Tehran's National Museum of the Islamic Revolution and Holy Defence, the paper illuminates how these hauntings permeate public consciousness, and shape collective temporality. I present the concept of geohauntology to highlight the central geographical aspect of invisibilities, hauntings, memories, and ghosts in geographical research and in the study of memory and remembrance more broadly. I conclude by analyzing the ways in which the Iranian state strategically curates and controls these spectral presences, while mobilizing the ghosts of the Iran-Iraq War as instruments of governance, national memory, and ideological reinforcement.