Shahram Khosravi

The 'illegal' traveller: an auto-ethnography of borders ∗

Borders of nation-states have come to be a natural order in human lives. They are not only edges of a state but also seen as an essential reference of national identity. Based on a capitalist-oriented and racial discriminating way of thinking, borders regulate movements of people. In an era of global inequality of mobility rights, freedom of mobility for some is only possible through systematic exclusion of others. This paper is an auto-ethnography of borders and ‘illegal’ travelling. Based on personal experiences of a long journey across many borders in Asia and Europe, I attempt to explore how the contemporary border regime operates. The paper focuses on the rituals and performances of border crossing. This is a narrative of the late 20th century through the eyes of an ‘illegal’ migrant.

Reordering Public and Private in Iranian Cyberspace: Identity, Politics, and Mobilization

The capacity of cyberspace to bypass some of the spatial divisions that underpin social inequality endows it with political significance. This article examines some of the ways in which cyberspace has contributed to redrawing the boundaries between public and private and some of the consequences of this for people, things, and ideas in Iran and the Iranian diaspora. It shows how cyberspace influences a wide range of political phenomena including political mobilization and censorship, intergenerational communication, identity formation, sexuality, sense of belonging, and forms and location of symbolic capital. The relationship between net users in the diaspora and cyberspace involves a circuit of reorderings of ones understanding of the diaspora, ones contact with it in cyberspace, of ones own ideas on the basis of what one finds there, and of social relationships established and maintained in cyberspace. Paradoxically, the very richness and diversity of the ideas and opinions found in Iranian cyberspace may undermine the idea of there actually being a single Iranian diaspora.

An Ethnography of Migrant ‘Illegality’ in Sweden: Included yet Excepted?

This article examines how migrant ‘illegality’ is experienced in the Swedish context. How do ‘illegal‘ migrants manage work, housing, healthcare, safety and a family life in the absence of access to formal provisions? What are their survival strategies? I use direct quotations from undocumented migrants themselves to build a multifaceted picture of migrant ‘illegality’. Following Willens (2007) call for a ‘critical phenomenology of illegality’, I move beyond the socio-political situation of undocumented migrants to their embodied experiences of being ‘illegal’. I conclude that undocumented migrants are not excluded but are excepted; they have not been thrown out, but neither are they considered participants. Undocumented migrants are included in society without being recognised as members.

Displacement and entrepreneurship: Iranian small businesses in Stockholm

Abstract Increasing unemployment in Sweden has affected non‐Western residents particularly hard. A shrinking public sector, and toughening attitudes toward migrant job‐seekers within the private sector, frequently leave self‐employment as the only option. The emergence of an ethnic economy is partly due to the opportunity structure in the host society, and partly to available ethnic resources. This article examines Iranian small businesses in Stockholm. The Swedish labour market, and the situation of Iranian migrants within it, are crucial factors in. bringing about the Iranian entry into self‐employment. Yet, ethnic resources and previous work experiences in Iran also play an important role in shaping economic activities among Iranians in Sweden. This article portrays how Iranians, whose social space has been distorted by displacement, contrive to reconstruct this in the Swedish setting.

Displaced Masculinity: Gender and Ethnicity among Iranian men in Sweden

Masculinity, like other kinds of social identity, is an ongoing construction in a dialogue between ones self-image and others perceptions of one. The interplay between ethnicity and masculinity is a main theme in this article. Due to geographical displacement, the Iranian mans masculine identity has been challenged and renegotiated on the one hand by Iranian womens struggle for emancipation and on the other hand by the Swedish mediawork. Iranian men are displaced from the position of having a powerful gaze, which fixed and controlled women into a position of being an object of the gaze of others. The dominant gaze in Sweden makes them (in)visible in the same way their gaze makes women (in)visible in Iran.

The free movement of people around the world would be Utopian: IUAES World Congress 2013: Evolving Humanity, Emerging Worlds, 5–10 August 2013

ABSTRACT This article contains the text and discussion of a debate held at the IUAES World Congress in Anthropology at Manchester University in 2013. The motion was proposed by Bela Feldman-Bianco (State University of Campinas), seconded by Noel Salazar (University of Leuven) and was opposed by Shahram Khosravi (Stockholm University), seconded by Nicholas de Genova (then at Goldsmiths’ College). The debate was chaired by Simone Abram (Durham University).

The free movement of people around the world would be Utopian

ABSTRACT This article contains the text and discussion of a debate held at the IUAES World Congress in Anthropology at Manchester University in 2013. The motion was proposed by Bela Feldman-Bianco (State University of Campinas), seconded by Noel Salazar (University of Leuven) and was opposed by Shahram Khosravi (Stockholm University), seconded by Nicholas de Genova (then at Goldsmiths’ College). The debate was chaired by Simone Abram (Durham University).

A Fragmented Diaspora

Abstract The notion of diaspora generally indicates achievements: creating a home outside the homeland, entrepreneurship, the establishment of local and global networks, new organisations, media and spatial as well as social mobility. In studies of Iranian diaspora, a rosy picture of ‘super successful’ Iranians has often obscured other aspects of the diaspora — failure, conflicts, internal exclusion and fragmentation of the group along various lines, such as ideologies, class, gender, local identification and cause of migration. Through ethnographic vignettes of the Iranian migrants in Sweden, this article demonstrates the segmentation, hybridity and complexity of the experiences of the diaspora. Avoiding the language of generalisation and by focussing instead on particular histories and individual circumstances, it reveals the diversity, disintegration and contradictions within what has been assumed to be a homogeneous and static diaspora.

Engaging Anthropology: An Auto-Ethnographic Approach

Auto-ethnography is a writing style with personal experiences interjected into ethnographic writing. As a form of self-narrative, auto-ethnography places the self within a social context. An interesting aspect of this genre is that the distinction between ethnographer and others becomes blurred. Auto-ethnography links the world of the author with the world of others. The main aim of my auto-ethnographies has been to link, to connect, human experiences. My stories gain their narrative power from the spaces in between these experiences. This linking and communicability of experiences is the core strength of auto-ethnography. Based on my own experiences as migrant, anthropologist and public intellectual, in this chapter I will explore what emerges from the space in between.

The Invisible Border

My first residence in Sweden after being released from detention was a refugee camp in Kiruna, the northernmost city in Sweden, 145 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. Through the window of the airplane, as far as our sight reached, there was only snow and woodland. No immigrant communities existed in that little Arctic town. With our dark black hair or skin, we stuck out everywhere we went. People looked at us as if we were space aliens.