NESTED (in)securities: Commodity and currency circuits in an Iran under sanctions

Abstract

This essay uses a conversation with an Iranian interlocutor to explore the political economy of Iranian sanctions and the creative improvisations they produce on dynamic economic grounds-characterized by an increasingly soft and devaluing national currency, the Iranian rial. It reveals how various (in)securities tied to monetary transactions, particularly those conducted with the "outside world, " come to nest within one another in an Iran under sanctions.