I am an anthropologist with an interest in cultural production, transnationalism and the Middle East and Gulf countries. My scholarship is based on long-term interaction with cultural producers across local, regional and international contexts and tensions between diaspora and homeland that undergird the circulation of people and objects. the research opens up discussions of the global art world as a process of assemblage through the organization of shared values and investments

My research is located at the intersection of the anthropology of art and material and visual culture studies. Multi-sited fieldwork in Dubai, London, New York and Tehran, informs my engagement with postcolonial, assemblage and actor-network theory.

I joined the Department of Sociology in September 2022 as Fellow in Culture and Society. I received my PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology form New York University in 2020. Prior to joining the department, I was a Lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art where I remain a consultant.

At LSE, I teach on the MA Culture and Society and the undergraduate course Material Culture and Everyday Life.

Publications

Naming Me and Naming Them: The Politics and Poetics of Names, Smithsonian Institute Recovering Voices, (in preparation)

Sanctions and the Visual Arts of Iran, Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, Vol 14, Issue 2, 2023

The Emergence of an Auction Category: Iranian Art at Christie’s Dubai in Arts, Special Issue "The Contemporary Art Market”, Volume 10, Issue 2, pg. 35, 2021

Post-Pandemic Art Ecologies: Online Engagement in British Museums, in Covid-19 and the Arts in Europe, Magenta Books, Ukraine, 2021

The Practice of Art: An Alternative View of Contemporary Art Practice in Tehran, in Art and Aesthetics in a Globalizing World, (eds) Raminder Kaur & Parul Mukherjee, Berg, 2013

Coffee Shops and Cigarettes: The Importance of Place Amongst Iranian Diaspora in Tehran, in Iranian Studies, Volume 46, Issue 1, 2013, pg. 115, 2013