Author Archives: Narges Bajoghli

About Narges Bajoghli

Narges Bajoghli is an anthropologist and assistant professor of Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University, SAIS. Her first book, Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic (Stanford, 2019), examines military and paramilitary media producers in Iran. This book won the 2020 Margaret Mead Award, 2020 CHOICE Award for Out- standing Academic Title, and the 2021 Silver Medal in Current Events from the Independent Book Publishers Award. Her second book is How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare (Stanford, 2024, with Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Esfahani, and Ali Vaez).

Introduction: Studying the Impacts of Economic Sanctions in Iran: Everyday Life, Power, and Foreign Policy

January 17, 2024 by
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The most-sanctioned country in the world, Iran has been under continuous Western (predominantly US) sanctions for four decades. Sanctions are a historical process in Iran—indeed, throughout the Middle East and increasingly in other regions of the world. It is now nearly impossible to analyze contemporary societies in Iran, the wider Middle East, certain parts of Africa and Latin America, and increasingly Russia and China, without considering the multilayered impacts of economic sanctions. While the United States, wary of traditional warfare after its experiences in the Continue reading → Continue reading →

Iran in Latin America: Building Alliances for Busting Economic Sanctions

January 14, 2024 by
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Abstract: Based on fieldwork over ten years in Iran and Cuba, this article follows the myriad political, economic, and cultural, relationships developed between Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba since 2008, as a direct challenge to U.S. sanctions on all three countries. What can we learn about U.S. sanctions when we look at the lived experiences of those both coping with and defying U.S. sanctions in three of the main targeted societies? What do these alliances of sanctions busting show us about the limits of U.S. sanctions, Continue reading → Continue reading →