Maziyar Ghiabi
I am an Italian/Iranian social scientist, ethnographer and historian working on the nexus of politics and health. I am a Wellcome Senior Lecturer in Medical Humanities at the University of Exeter, which includes a five-year research fellowship (2021-26) working on 'Living "Addiction" in States of Disruption'.
Prior to this post, I was research fellow at the Drugs and Disorder project in Development Studies, SOAS; and a lecturer at the University of Oxford and Titular Fellow at Wadham College; and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Paris School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) and a member of the Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire des Enjeux Sociaux (IRIS). I obtained my Doctorate in Politics at the University of Oxford (St Antony’s College) where I was a Wellcome Trust Scholar in Society and Ethics (2013–2017). I am the author of the book Drugs Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2019) which won the MESA 2020 Book of the Year Nikki Keddie Award. The book is also available in Open Access format.
I am also the editor of the Special Issue on ‘Drugs, Politics and Society in the Global South’ published by Third World Quarterly.
My second monograph book is under contract with McGill-Queen's University Press under the title of 'A State without People', to be out in 2022.
My interest falls at the crossroads of different disciplinary and intellectual fields, from medical anthropology (addicted lives), politics (drug policy and state formation), to modern social history across the Middle East and Mediterranean. In this trans-cultural space I work also on documentary making and photography as means of methodological engagement.
My contributions come in different languages, including English, French, Italian, Persian, Arabic, and Portuguese.
Part of my documentary project can be seen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maziyus/
https://orinst.web.ox.ac.uk/people/maziyar-ghiabi
Prior to this post, I was research fellow at the Drugs and Disorder project in Development Studies, SOAS; and a lecturer at the University of Oxford and Titular Fellow at Wadham College; and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Paris School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) and a member of the Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire des Enjeux Sociaux (IRIS). I obtained my Doctorate in Politics at the University of Oxford (St Antony’s College) where I was a Wellcome Trust Scholar in Society and Ethics (2013–2017). I am the author of the book Drugs Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2019) which won the MESA 2020 Book of the Year Nikki Keddie Award. The book is also available in Open Access format.
I am also the editor of the Special Issue on ‘Drugs, Politics and Society in the Global South’ published by Third World Quarterly.
My second monograph book is under contract with McGill-Queen's University Press under the title of 'A State without People', to be out in 2022.
My interest falls at the crossroads of different disciplinary and intellectual fields, from medical anthropology (addicted lives), politics (drug policy and state formation), to modern social history across the Middle East and Mediterranean. In this trans-cultural space I work also on documentary making and photography as means of methodological engagement.
My contributions come in different languages, including English, French, Italian, Persian, Arabic, and Portuguese.
Part of my documentary project can be seen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maziyus/
https://orinst.web.ox.ac.uk/people/maziyar-ghiabi
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Books by Maziyar Ghiabi
Iran has one of the world's highest rates of drug addiction: estimated to be between 2 and 7 percent of the entire population. This makes the questions that this book asks all the more salient: what is the place of illegal substances in the politics of modern Iran? How have drugs affected the formation of the Iranian state and its power dynamics? And how have governmental attempts at controlling and regulating illicit drugs affected drug consumption and addiction? By answering these questions, Maziyar Ghiabi suggests that the Islamic Republic of Iran's image as an inherently conservative state is not only misplaced and inaccurate, but in part a myth. In order to dispel this myth, he skilfully combines ethnographic narratives from drug users, vivid field observations from 'under the bridge', with archival material from the pre- and post-revolutionary era, statistics on drug arrests and interviews with public officials. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
'Maziyar Ghaibi’s book is a fascinating study of the politics and lifeworld of illicit drugs, one that reveals a great deal about the paradoxical nature of politics in the Islamic Republic. Empirically rich and analytically rigorous, this first comprehensive account of drug politics in Iran is likely to remain a standard text.'
Asef Bayat - University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
'A refreshing and rare on-the-ground analysis of Iranian lived politics through the prism of drugs. With a rare depth and width of archival research and discourse analysis, Ghiabi brings us a unique combination of exquisite storytelling, inter-disciplinary inquiry, and ethnographic possibilities. Situated in a global perspective, Drugs Politics offers a fresh alternative to exceptionalist and oft-essentializing trends in studying Iran. A tremendous achievement toward a much needed holistic understanding of policy, Iran, and life itself.'
Orkideh Behrouzan - School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and author of Prozak Diaries: Psychiatry and Generational Memory in Iran
'This is a landmark study, an eye-opener for those who still associate the Islamic Republic with a harshly punitive stance on narcotics. Iran, a society in which opium was traditionally integrated into life, has in recent decades been hit by a wave of synthetic drugs - heroin, meth and crack - that are now massively used by the down and out as well as by its globalized, anomic youth. Given wide access to official policy makers, Ghiabi tells the story of how the authorities of the Islamic republic have dealt with this problem by opting for harm reduction rather than criminalization, how they abandoned the shah’s unimaginative American-style 'war on drugs' and, working with NGOs and international organizations, adopted a pragmatic, neo-liberal approach that mixes draconian measures against dealers with a compassionate, welfare-focused approach vis-à-vis users. Anyone curious about Iran’s innovative approach to drugs should read this deeply informed, engaging book.'
Rudi Matthee - University of Delaware
'With historical sweep and ethnographic insight, Ghiabi makes the politics of drug consumption and addiction visible to audiences which have preferred to observe these matters from above and afar. His tale of drug politics in the Islamic Republic will not only be surprising for most Iranians, but also crafts a provocative lens with which to rethink our views on state-society dynamics across the world.'
Kevan Harris - University of California, Los Angeles and author of A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran
'In this comparatively informed study, Maziar Ghiabi untangles the ironies and ambiguities of Iranian drug policies before and after the revolution of 1979. Based on rigorous fieldwork, this book is the foundational text for future research on Iran’s drug problems.'
Houchang Chehabi - Boston University
'Through rigorous archival investigation and courageous ethnographic inquiry, Maziyar Ghiabi traces the history of public responses to the drug epidemic in Iran and analyzes the current challenges of its management. Illuminating the tensions between punitive and reformist approaches, he provides a fascinating account of the Islamic Republic’s government of crises.'
Didier Fassin - Princeton University, New Jersey
يضم هذا الكتاب مختارات من بحوث قُدّمت في مؤتمر «خمس سنوات على الثورات العربية: عسر التحوّل الديمقراطي ومآلاته»، الذي عقده المركز العربي للأبحاث ودراسة السياسات، بالتعاون مع معهد عصام فارس للسياسات العامة والشؤون الدولية - الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت، بين 21 و 23 كانون الثاني/يناير 2016.
تناول بعض هذه البحوث شهادات وقراءات معمَّقة لفاعلين سياسيين وباحثين، ومجريات انطلاق الثورات وتحوّلاتها خلال مرحلة انتقالية؛ ذلك أن التحوّلات التي نتجت من هذه الثورات ما زالت مستمرة. وأعادت بحوث أخرى قراءة تحوّلات الثورات في ضوء مداخل نظرية متعددة، بينما تناول بعض ثالث مأزق الدولة التسلطية في مرحلة اندلاع الثورات العربية، والتحوّلات السياسية والاجتماعية في زمن المرحلة الانتقالية للثورات، وما أفرزته من ظواهر اجتماعية - سياسية - أيديولوجية.
Peer-reviewed Articles by Maziyar Ghiabi
article makes a case for an interdisciplinary quest. To borrow Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze’s phrase,
we are convinced that ‘everything is political, but every politics is simultaneously a macropolitics and
a micropolitics.’ With an eye to open-ended research questions, this article attempts to build a body of
theoretical, political and anthropological considerations, which, it is hoped, could function as a case
of enquiry into the mechanics of power, revolt and revolution. The objective is to draw comparative
and phenomenological lines between the events of the 2011 ‘Arab Spring,’ in its local ecologies of
protest, with its global reverberations as materialized in the slogans, acts and ideals of Greek and
Spanish Indignados and the UK and US occupy movements. In order to do so, it proposes to clarify
terminological ambiguities and to bring into the analytical scenario new subjects, new means and
new connections. The article resolves to lay the ground for a scholarship of silence, by which the set
of unheard voices, hidden actions and defiant tactics of the ordinary, through extraordinary people,
find place in the interpretation of phenomena such as revolts and revolutions.
coercion were practiced and defied in the making of punishment and welfare in the social body of Iran.
(note 2: There is a toponimical struggle between Arabic and Persian toponyms; ‘Arabistān is the Arabic name for today’s Khuzistan. The latter was given by decree of Reżā Šāh in a general program of Persianization of regional and local names. At the same time the etymology of Ḫuzistān has been drawn to the sugar cultivations (> ḫuz, Persian term meaning “sugar-cane”), which was one of the main cultivations of the region). Other theories state that Khuzistan is the region where the Ḫuzis used to live. Once more linguistic theories go side by side with political aims and they find themselves affected, either directly
and indirectly, by socio-political phenomena. For a detailed study of these denominations, see: Soucek, Svat, “Arabistan or Khuzistan”, IrSt, XVII/3-4, (1984): pp. 195-213; Lockhart, Laurence, “Khuzistan”, EI2, V (1979): p. 80; Yaqūt al-Ḥamawī, Muj‘am al-buldān, (al-Qāhira: Dār al-ma‘ārif bi Maṣr, 1954):
p. 380).
Âyiné’s intention is to arouse the brazilian public’s curiosity regarding beauty and the vastness of a part of the world as important as it is unfamiliar.
Âyiné proposes to produce original or translated tests in portuguese that enable readers to make contact with and examine the different aspects of the eastern world.
Âyiné will deal with the regions which for centuries have come into contact with islamic culture and became defined or simply influenced by it.
These texts will be written by important figures and distinguished experts on the topics addressed, without allowing the quality of the contents to spoil the pleasurable reading, thereby remaining accessible to a broad range of readers.
From the strategic point of view, âyiné’s quest is to fill an almost utter void in the brazilian publishing market by offering a product that is open while strict.
Book Chapters by Maziyar Ghiabi
Iran has one of the world's highest rates of drug addiction: estimated to be between 2 and 7 percent of the entire population. This makes the questions that this book asks all the more salient: what is the place of illegal substances in the politics of modern Iran? How have drugs affected the formation of the Iranian state and its power dynamics? And how have governmental attempts at controlling and regulating illicit drugs affected drug consumption and addiction? By answering these questions, Maziyar Ghiabi suggests that the Islamic Republic of Iran's image as an inherently conservative state is not only misplaced and inaccurate, but in part a myth. In order to dispel this myth, he skilfully combines ethnographic narratives from drug users, vivid field observations from 'under the bridge', with archival material from the pre- and post-revolutionary era, statistics on drug arrests and interviews with public officials. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
'Maziyar Ghaibi’s book is a fascinating study of the politics and lifeworld of illicit drugs, one that reveals a great deal about the paradoxical nature of politics in the Islamic Republic. Empirically rich and analytically rigorous, this first comprehensive account of drug politics in Iran is likely to remain a standard text.'
Asef Bayat - University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
'A refreshing and rare on-the-ground analysis of Iranian lived politics through the prism of drugs. With a rare depth and width of archival research and discourse analysis, Ghiabi brings us a unique combination of exquisite storytelling, inter-disciplinary inquiry, and ethnographic possibilities. Situated in a global perspective, Drugs Politics offers a fresh alternative to exceptionalist and oft-essentializing trends in studying Iran. A tremendous achievement toward a much needed holistic understanding of policy, Iran, and life itself.'
Orkideh Behrouzan - School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and author of Prozak Diaries: Psychiatry and Generational Memory in Iran
'This is a landmark study, an eye-opener for those who still associate the Islamic Republic with a harshly punitive stance on narcotics. Iran, a society in which opium was traditionally integrated into life, has in recent decades been hit by a wave of synthetic drugs - heroin, meth and crack - that are now massively used by the down and out as well as by its globalized, anomic youth. Given wide access to official policy makers, Ghiabi tells the story of how the authorities of the Islamic republic have dealt with this problem by opting for harm reduction rather than criminalization, how they abandoned the shah’s unimaginative American-style 'war on drugs' and, working with NGOs and international organizations, adopted a pragmatic, neo-liberal approach that mixes draconian measures against dealers with a compassionate, welfare-focused approach vis-à-vis users. Anyone curious about Iran’s innovative approach to drugs should read this deeply informed, engaging book.'
Rudi Matthee - University of Delaware
'With historical sweep and ethnographic insight, Ghiabi makes the politics of drug consumption and addiction visible to audiences which have preferred to observe these matters from above and afar. His tale of drug politics in the Islamic Republic will not only be surprising for most Iranians, but also crafts a provocative lens with which to rethink our views on state-society dynamics across the world.'
Kevan Harris - University of California, Los Angeles and author of A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran
'In this comparatively informed study, Maziar Ghiabi untangles the ironies and ambiguities of Iranian drug policies before and after the revolution of 1979. Based on rigorous fieldwork, this book is the foundational text for future research on Iran’s drug problems.'
Houchang Chehabi - Boston University
'Through rigorous archival investigation and courageous ethnographic inquiry, Maziyar Ghiabi traces the history of public responses to the drug epidemic in Iran and analyzes the current challenges of its management. Illuminating the tensions between punitive and reformist approaches, he provides a fascinating account of the Islamic Republic’s government of crises.'
Didier Fassin - Princeton University, New Jersey
يضم هذا الكتاب مختارات من بحوث قُدّمت في مؤتمر «خمس سنوات على الثورات العربية: عسر التحوّل الديمقراطي ومآلاته»، الذي عقده المركز العربي للأبحاث ودراسة السياسات، بالتعاون مع معهد عصام فارس للسياسات العامة والشؤون الدولية - الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت، بين 21 و 23 كانون الثاني/يناير 2016.
تناول بعض هذه البحوث شهادات وقراءات معمَّقة لفاعلين سياسيين وباحثين، ومجريات انطلاق الثورات وتحوّلاتها خلال مرحلة انتقالية؛ ذلك أن التحوّلات التي نتجت من هذه الثورات ما زالت مستمرة. وأعادت بحوث أخرى قراءة تحوّلات الثورات في ضوء مداخل نظرية متعددة، بينما تناول بعض ثالث مأزق الدولة التسلطية في مرحلة اندلاع الثورات العربية، والتحوّلات السياسية والاجتماعية في زمن المرحلة الانتقالية للثورات، وما أفرزته من ظواهر اجتماعية - سياسية - أيديولوجية.
article makes a case for an interdisciplinary quest. To borrow Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze’s phrase,
we are convinced that ‘everything is political, but every politics is simultaneously a macropolitics and
a micropolitics.’ With an eye to open-ended research questions, this article attempts to build a body of
theoretical, political and anthropological considerations, which, it is hoped, could function as a case
of enquiry into the mechanics of power, revolt and revolution. The objective is to draw comparative
and phenomenological lines between the events of the 2011 ‘Arab Spring,’ in its local ecologies of
protest, with its global reverberations as materialized in the slogans, acts and ideals of Greek and
Spanish Indignados and the UK and US occupy movements. In order to do so, it proposes to clarify
terminological ambiguities and to bring into the analytical scenario new subjects, new means and
new connections. The article resolves to lay the ground for a scholarship of silence, by which the set
of unheard voices, hidden actions and defiant tactics of the ordinary, through extraordinary people,
find place in the interpretation of phenomena such as revolts and revolutions.
coercion were practiced and defied in the making of punishment and welfare in the social body of Iran.
(note 2: There is a toponimical struggle between Arabic and Persian toponyms; ‘Arabistān is the Arabic name for today’s Khuzistan. The latter was given by decree of Reżā Šāh in a general program of Persianization of regional and local names. At the same time the etymology of Ḫuzistān has been drawn to the sugar cultivations (> ḫuz, Persian term meaning “sugar-cane”), which was one of the main cultivations of the region). Other theories state that Khuzistan is the region where the Ḫuzis used to live. Once more linguistic theories go side by side with political aims and they find themselves affected, either directly
and indirectly, by socio-political phenomena. For a detailed study of these denominations, see: Soucek, Svat, “Arabistan or Khuzistan”, IrSt, XVII/3-4, (1984): pp. 195-213; Lockhart, Laurence, “Khuzistan”, EI2, V (1979): p. 80; Yaqūt al-Ḥamawī, Muj‘am al-buldān, (al-Qāhira: Dār al-ma‘ārif bi Maṣr, 1954):
p. 380).
Âyiné’s intention is to arouse the brazilian public’s curiosity regarding beauty and the vastness of a part of the world as important as it is unfamiliar.
Âyiné proposes to produce original or translated tests in portuguese that enable readers to make contact with and examine the different aspects of the eastern world.
Âyiné will deal with the regions which for centuries have come into contact with islamic culture and became defined or simply influenced by it.
These texts will be written by important figures and distinguished experts on the topics addressed, without allowing the quality of the contents to spoil the pleasurable reading, thereby remaining accessible to a broad range of readers.
From the strategic point of view, âyiné’s quest is to fill an almost utter void in the brazilian publishing market by offering a product that is open while strict.
From the use of stimulant drugs during the open-ended revolts of the ‘Arab Spring’, the establishment of harm reduction policies in Iran, to the legalisation process in Uruguay, and decriminalisation in Portugal, drug policy is living an academic momentum without precedents. The issue of drugs has gained an especial place in the domestic, transnational and international context, with trajectories that could be innovative and potentially influential on the global scenario.
The two-day symposium intends to tackle the issue of drugs through an interdisciplinary, multi-sited approach, which is also peculiar to the tradition of St Antony’s College and the Department of Politics and International Relations. The objective is to bring together scholars whose interest in drug politics, sensu lato, and area expertise can contribute to triggering meaningful comparative debate. By focusing on several themes in two days, this would allow a comprehensive discussion of major aspects of drug policy in the Global South. One major contribution of this symposium would be to discuss the issue of drugs in those regions, which have often been left out of the drug policy debate. Apart from scholars working on Latin American drug politics, the events will include participation of scholars working on drugs in the Middle East, Africa and East Asia.
The event is open to the public and will take place in the InvestCorp Auditorium on October 26-27, 2016.