From: Narges Bajoghli <[email protected]> Here I share here two new publications -- a book and a journal article -- based on my 10 years of ethnographic research in Iran among media producers of the Revolutionary Guard and Basij paramilitary organizations. I hope they will be of interest! Links and abstracts below.
All my very best, Narges Book: Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic <https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=29666> (Stanford University Press, 2019) An inside look at what it means to be pro-regime in Iran, and the debates around the future of the Islamic Republic. More than half of Iran's citizens were not alive at the time of the 1979 Revolution. Now entering its fifth decade in power, the Iranian regime faces the paradox of any successful revolution: how to transmit the commitments of its political project to the next generation. New media ventures supported by the Islamic Republic attempt to win the hearts and minds of younger Iranians. Yet members of this new generation—whether dissidents or fundamentalists—are increasingly skeptical of these efforts. Iran Reframed offers unprecedented access to those who wield power in Iran as they debate and define the future of the Republic. Over ten years, Narges Bajoghli met with men in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Ansar Hezbollah, and Basij paramilitary organizations to investigate how their media producers developed strategies to court Iranian youth. Readers come to know these men—what the regime means to them and their anxieties about the future of their revolutionary project. Contestation over how to define the regime underlies all their efforts to communicate with the public. This book offers a multilayered story about what it means to be pro-regime in the Islamic Republic, challenging everything we think we know about Iran and revolution. Journal Article: The Researcher as a National Security Threat: Interrogative Surveillance, Agency, and Entanglement in Iran and the United States < https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article/39/3/451/141388/The-Researcher-as-a-National-Security > (Journal of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, December 2019) Based on ethnographic research in Iran among the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its Basij militia, this article explores the process of gaining access to these militarized groups in order to conduct long-term research. Specifically, what does it mean to build rapport and gain trust within a highly securitized space such as this? What happens when the researcher is a potential “national security” threat in both Iran and the United States? How is national security enacted in everyday interactions in the field? Given that anthropologists have tended to have an affinity with the group and community they work with, this article explores the implications of research among a group of men in charge of surveillance, intelligence gathering, and citizen suppression in the country. The article argues that in the midst of national security rhetoric, interrogative surveillance is a strategic tool that makes space for engagement. -- Narges Bajoghli, PhD (Pronounced: Nar-guess Ba-jogh-lee) Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University Book: Iran Reframed <https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=29666> Website: www.nargesbajoghli.com ******************************************
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