Q&A with Amin Moghadam
Amin Moghadam arrived in Toronto in January 2021 after a long wait in Paris for his travel papers. He takes up a new role as Senior Research Associate on the CERC Migration team, conducting research into the politics of housing and home-making with a focus on the Iranian diaspora while also going through the challenges and excitement of establishing a new home in Canada. These two paths – Amin’s research trajectory and his own track as a migrant – have been closely intertwined throughout his research career.
With an undergraduate and a master’s degree in anthropology, how did you make the leap into the field of migration research?
I have always had an interest in migration because of my own experience as a migrant. One of the first things you learn when studying sociology is that you need to be objective, to have the “social distance” from your object of study. But to me, it is impossible to separate my personal experience. We all have positionality in society that influences the way we see the world and what we find interesting.
I emigrated from Iran at the age of 18 to study anthropology in France. For my master’s thesis, I returned to study the development issues in the south of Iran. I was inspired by the incredible dynamism in the region through its connection to the southern shore of the Persian Gulf in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), particularly in Dubai. This set the seed for my PhD, which I completed at Université de Lyon.
Why was the Iranian diaspora in Dubai of interest to you?
The historical depth of connections and circulations in the Persian Gulf and the complexity of players involved create a particularly fascinating situation to study transnational practices. One aspect of my doctoral thesis examined the motivations and ways in which people in a diaspora keep a relationship with their home country, and it looked at the involvement of state and non-state actors in not only controlling but also encouraging mobilities and circulation. In short, my interest is both in the migrant experience from the migrants’ perspective as well as the political economy of circulations.
Iranian migrants living in Dubai face extreme precarity because, like other foreigners, they can’t gain citizenship in the U.A.E.; people can work in Dubai for 30 to 40 years and still face deportation if they don’t have a job. Add to this the political tensions between the two countries which affect the situation of Iranian migrants living there.
Despite these geopolitical issues, Dubai is extremely important to Iran as a port of re-exportation and for the diaspora living there. Historically, many Iranians were drawn to the low tax regime of Dubai and large groups of Iranians emigrated to Dubai at the beginning of the 20th century. Some have accumulated wealth which they have invested back into their home country, helping to build mosques, hospitals, schools, etc. As a country isolated from the world due to the sanctions imposed in various forms since 1979, the connections to the diaspora are strong and vital, providing a wealth of phenomena to examine.
Through your research, what insight has surprised you most or changed your understanding?
I have been fascinated to observe the creativity of migrants. Too often, we study migrants under a system of surveillance and don’t recognize their agency – how they find their way or create their own universe, which can involve many things, such as friendship, strategies of money spending/allocation and even love.
In 2011, I got involved in the art scene in Dubai and became aware of the many businessmen who were participating in the art market. This led me to examine cultural entrepreneurs as another figure of transnational migrations and circulations. The involvement in the arts helped these businessmen to obtain a new social status, to create new social and cultural capital through dealings in art. They had to use creativity to circumnavigate many obstacles. My postdoctoral research at Princeton looked at how the rise of a transnational art market was impacting urban space, how these actors were creating new values in consumption and generating what French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu calls “symbolic capital”.
What direction will your research take with CERC Migration?
I am now focusing on the intersections of housing, house and home as the “material object” of my research to understand the diaspora experience. I am interested in how migrants decide where to live; what is considered “home”; how housing policy affects migrant decisions; and conversely, how migrant participation in the housing market affects speculation, supply and urban character. My focus is on the subjective emotional aspects and the economics of home for the diaspora living in Turkey and Canada – both of which have very different contexts. Canada is now one of the most important places in the world for the Iranian diaspora.
One of my first public-facing initiatives with CERC Migration is to curate blog commentary and host a webinar to take place in June 2021 that will share international perspectives on the socio-economic implications of human mobilities in relation to the politics of housing and home-making.
What one outcome do you hope to achieve with your work?
My research is largely about the political economy of migration and I hope it will provide an alternative way of looking at the issues. The primary trend in academia is to study migration through identity and identity politics. I worry that this may hide important aspects of migration. By understanding the material aspects of migration (such as housing, house and home), my work provides a different lens to understand the social relationships and power relationships of migrants.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
