Join us for the 8th session in the Economics Histories of the Global South Seminar Series hosted by Rethinking Economics International, Pathways Beyond Neoliberalism: Voices from MENA (American University in Cairo, Egypt) and WITS Institute for Social and Economic Research (University of Witwatersrand, South Africa).
We will be discussing Mattin Biglari’s new book, Nationalising Oil and Knowledge in Iran: Labour, Decolonisation and Colonial Modernity, 1933–51, published by Edinburgh University Press in 2025
About the book:
Iran’s nationalisation of oil in 1951 was a key catalyst for the rise of resource nationalism as an animating force of global decolonisation, expelling the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC, now known as BP) after nearly 50 years of domination in southwest Iran. Nationalising Oil and Knowledge in Iran turns to the origins of nationalisation in the everyday struggles between the oil company and subaltern actors in the city of Abadan, then home to the world’s largest oil refinery and deeply imbricated in networks of colonialism and racial capitalism.
Engaging with energy history, postcolonial/subaltern studies, and science and technology studies, the book focuses on the politics of expertise: how nationalisation reproduced the epistemic coloniality of the oil company, which rested on local dispossession, social engineering, as well as racial and gendered segregation. It argues that nationalisation diverged from subaltern contestations of oil expertise in Abadan, which presented a more fundamental challenge to colonial modernity.
Author & Speaker:
Mattin Biglari is a Lecturer in the Department of History, University of Bristol. His research focuses at the intersection of energy, environment, infrastructure and labour, especially in the history of Iran and the Middle East. The book under discussion is adapted from his doctoral thesis, which was awarded the 2021 BRISMES Leigh Douglas Memorial Prize.
Discussants:
Andrea Wright is an Associate Profession at William & Mary, Virginia. Her research examines research examines the histories of capitalism and its contemporary expressions in South Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and globally, drawing upon postcolonial theories of mobility and decolonial theories of community to better understand how labor, migration, and energy production shape economies, geo-political dynamics, and social inequalities. Her most recent book is Unruly Labor: A History of Oil in the Arabian Sea (Stanford University Press, 2024).
Antoine Acker is a Head of the Modern History Section at the Department of General History,
University of Geneva. He is an environmental historian and leads the project AnthropoSouth: Latin American Oil Revolutions in the Development Century. His work and 2020 article, A Different Story in the Anthropocene: Brazil’s Post- colonial Quest for Oil (1930-1975) will bring him in a comparative conversation with Biglari’s book.
For attendees –
1. Please check the start time for your timezone here. The session at 6 pm IST | 2:30 pm SAST | 3:30 EET | 2:30 PM CAT | 12:30 pm UTC | 8:30 am EDT.
2. This seminar series is open to public and will be conducted as a Zoom Webinar.
3. Attendees can ask questions through the Q&A box. Visit our YouTube page for previous sessions in the series.