IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/raagxx/v112y2022i3p723-731.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Double Bind of Displacement: U.S. Sanctions, the Muslim Ban, and Experiences of Dislocation for Iranians Pursuing Higher Education in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • A. Marie Ranjbar

Abstract

In this article, I examine the material and affective impacts of U.S. foreign policy on Iranians pursuing higher education in the United States. I argue that punitive policies against Iran have created a double bind for Iranians, in which in situ displacement becomes a defining feature of life. I first situate the concept of in situ displacement within feminist theories of displacement and geopolitics to describe the incremental loss of economic, political, and social security in daily life, while remaining in place. Second, I analyze how U.S. foreign policy toward Iran results in in situ displacement for Iranian students, including feeling stuck in place due to restrictive visas, long delays in green card processing, and fears that they cannot reenter the United States if they travel to Iran. Drawing on key informant interviews and the analysis of U.S. regulatory documents, I demonstrate how the Trump administration’s Muslim ban laid bare different modalities of violence produced through four decades of punitive policies toward Iran. My analysis of sanctions, alongside the Muslim ban, reveals a complicated patchwork of regulations that are intended to target the Iranian state, yet these policies can have devastating consequences for Iranian students. I conclude with how these cases, although diverse, offer insight into how tensions between the United States and Iran result in multiple and varied forms of displacement, from the scale of the home to the geopolitical.

Suggested Citation

  • A. Marie Ranjbar, 2022. "The Double Bind of Displacement: U.S. Sanctions, the Muslim Ban, and Experiences of Dislocation for Iranians Pursuing Higher Education in the United States," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 112(3), pages 723-731, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:raagxx:v:112:y:2022:i:3:p:723-731
    DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2021.2004874
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/24694452.2021.2004874
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/24694452.2021.2004874?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:raagxx:v:112:y:2022:i:3:p:723-731. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/raag .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.