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Refugees

Between Uncertainty and Paradox: Afghan Refugees in Turkey

Afghan refugees in Turkey are in legal limbo in which their status is unclear. They have the right to reside in the country, but lack the right to work or the kind of state assistance needed to avoid working. To be a refugee in Turkey then requires navigating life between a state-acknowledged realm of illegality, and the uncertainty of how global trends can affect the fate of a refugee population.
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Lior Sternfeld on Polish Refugees in Mid-Century Tehran, War and Migration in the Cosmopolitan City

Another installment of the Emerging Scholarship series, where we sat down with Dr. Lior Sternfeld and talked about the Polish refugee community in Iran during and after World War II. Dr. Sternfeld explains Iranian relations with other countries during World War II and what this meant for its new European refugee community.
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Curtains of Iron or Curtains of Silk? Soviet Artwork in Conversation with West and South Asia

The post-Soviet art of Central Asia and the Caucasus comes out of a Soviet-era conversation of artistic styles that looks not just to Moscow but also to Mecca. An understanding of the high and low registers of this Soviet cultural heritage allows the humor and self-confidence of the work to be appreciated — aesthetically as well as financially — by audiences.
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From Tehran to Newcastle: “I Am Nasrine” and the Politics of Telling Migrant Narratives

I am Nasrine is the tale of two Iranian siblings who migrate to England and find a world of rampant discrimination that looks little like what they expected. The tragedy of the film is not one that can be easily limited to English housing estates or the plight of Iranian emigres. Indeed, this tale of migrant survival and struggle is far more universal, a searing indictment of the limits of liberalism and the failure of international and local humanitarian bureaucracies — as well as receiving societies as a whole — to effectively understand migrants as complex human beings.
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Whose Anatolia? Mapping Complexities and Shared Histories Between Kurds, Armenians, and Turks

There are mountains and there are roads. From an airplane, Eastern Anatolia looks like Frankenstein’s monster as the craggy mountains of the Zargos, Tarsus, and Caucasus ranges collide with geologic logic, sutured together by some of the finest roadways in the world. The modern republics facing this jagged jumble are as powerful as that monster, but perhaps also as hollow.
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Baku-born, Diaspora-bred: How Yura Movsisyan went from Refugee to 21st-century Armenian Hero

Yura Movsisyan came to the United States as a refugee from violence in his formerly-cosmopolitan, formerly Soviet, hometown of Baku. Now one of the best young soccer players in the world, he has become a national treasure for Armenians and for Americans. As a Hometown Hero for a worldwide diaspora community, Movsisyan has become a unique young man who is the symbol of a new 21st century Armenianness.
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  • More hamsas! We wish you all a happy Rosh Hashana and the Islamic new year. Unless you're Shia, in which case we wish you a very sad Muharram 🍎🍯 Hamsa from @seeedax06 #roshhashana #muharram #newyear Update: To clarify, the Islamic calendar begins with the month of Muharram. Sunnis wish each other a happy new year, whereas Shia commemorate and mourn the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, the third Shia imam and the Prophet's grandson throughout Muharram and the first twenty days of Safar. This post is not intended to be anti-Shia in any way.
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  • For your never-ending reading list, see @babakristian
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  • Ajam's latest Banned Literature post by our editor @diasporaletters is up! Follow the link in our bio to see her graphic short story about longing and loss. #ajamistan #iran
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  • Punch dagger used by Rajput princes to kill "big game" (think tigers and crocodiles) as a rite of passage 😱 for more info see @rachel.parikh 🐯
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  • Tag someone you would share your khoresht karafs with 😍 from our fav food blogger @rmsoleymani!
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  • 🖐🏽 tag bae to send them some good luck vibes ✨✨ #ajamistan
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