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Of Nuclear Rials and Golden Shoes: Scaling Commodities and Currencies across Sanctions on Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2021

Emrah Yıldız Open the ORCID record for Emrah Yıldız [Opens in a new window]
Emrah Yıldız*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 60208, USA
*
Corresponding author. Email: eyildiz@northwestern.edu
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Abstract

Since the 2012 sanctions that dis-embedded the Iranian economy from global markets, contraband commerce has become an explosive issue in Iran. Increasingly Iranians came to regard sanctions as enforced by both international powers and their own state officials, who criminalized certain kinds of cross-border trade, but not others. Although Iranian state actors distinguish between the trader—praised for contributing to the economy—and the traitor—denounced for undermining its integrity—what both unites and blurs the line between them is their shared struggle with a devaluing currency that some Iranians call nuclear. This article examines the “nuclear rial” by extending insights from anthropological scholarship on money to the study of sanctions to advance a dynamic understanding of currency. Studying Iranian trade in gold proves productive for understanding how people negotiate the effects of sanctions in an unevenly financialized world. At stake in the negotiations is a conditional articulation of monetary value that relies on contingent conversions between commodities and currencies and among currencies.

Keywords

commoditycontrabandcurrencyIransanctionsTurkey
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 604 - 619
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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