Mahmoud Keshavarz
Biographic Data
| ID | 343152 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mahmoud Keshavarz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mahmoud |
| FAMILY NAME | Keshavarz |
| SIGNATURE | KESHAVARZ M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Uppsala University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8934-988X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 23 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 6 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Mobilizing Documents: Identification, Bureaucracy, and Policing in Transnational Mobility
This co‐authored essay builds on a growing anthropological literature that engages critically and creatively with idealized official and popular ideas about documents of/in migration regimes. Documents are often championed as a common and unquestionable good in transnational migration but they are intrinsically tied to inequalities and exclusions. As such they can be the source of hope for migrants, but are frequently also the source of violence,…
The obscured racialisation of humanitarian design: Imagined problem, imagined participation and imagined human
Humanitarian design as a technological and aesthetic endeavour that has become part and parcel of contemporary humanitarianism promises to improve lives and bring dignity in the name of universal humanity through a wide spectrum of approaches, from expert-oriented problem solving to participatory and collaborative initiatives. However, decolonial thinkers who have questioned the universal positioning of the human, argue that the universal human o…
Smuggling as a Material Critique of Borders
By drawing on ethnographic and historical accounts of migrant smuggling and forgery from the smugglers’ perspectives, this essay shifts the focus from a state-centric understanding of smuggling as a criminal activity conducted by ‘greedy’ individuals and ‘mafia rings’, to a specific form of practice that operates through a series of concrete material techniques. It argues that smuggling recognises and reworks the material and technological featur…
Seeing Like a Smuggler: Borders from Below
Violent Compassions: Humanitarian Design and the Politics of Borders
Based on a critical analysis of the two notions of “crisis” and “compassion,” this article outlines and problematizes the increasing engagement of design practices with refugees and vulnerable communities on the move. By contextualizing different historical and contemporary humanitarian design examples in an analysis of current European border politics, the article questions the ways in which designing in the aftermath of the so-called “refugee c…
Targeted by Persuasion: Military Uniforms and the Legal Matter of Killing in War
In this paper, we argue that the legitimation of killing in war is not simply formed by adherence to certain legal requirements that exist apart from and prior to war; instead, we suggest, the law of armed conflict in itself cannot but operate through admitting certain materials onto the battlefield as distinctively legal materials. Using the theory of legal materiality, we show that the military uniform is a legal material that makes the legal m…
What Is at Stake with Decolonizing Design? A Roundtable
This roundtable was conducted by the eight founding members of Decolonising Design Group in October 2017, using an online messaging platform. Each member approached design and decoloniality from different yet interrelating viewpoints, by threading their individual arguments with the preceding ones. The piece thus offers and travels through a variety of subject matter including politics of design, artificiality, modernity, Eurocentrism, capitalism…
What Is at Stake with Decolonizing Design? A Roundtable
This roundtable was conducted by the eight founding members of Decolonising Design Group in October 2017, using an online messaging platform. Each member approached design and decoloniality from different yet interrelating viewpoints, by threading their individual arguments with the preceding ones. The piece thus offers and travels through a variety of subject matter including politics of design, artificiality, modernity, Eurocentrism, capitalism…
Smuggling as a Material Critique of Borders
By drawing on ethnographic and historical accounts of migrant smuggling and forgery from the smugglers’ perspectives, this essay shifts the focus from a state-centric understanding of smuggling as a criminal activity conducted by ‘greedy’ individuals and ‘mafia rings’, to a specific form of practice that operates through a series of concrete material techniques. It argues that smuggling recognises and reworks the material and technological featur…
The obscured racialisation of humanitarian design: Imagined problem, imagined participation and imagined human
Humanitarian design as a technological and aesthetic endeavour that has become part and parcel of contemporary humanitarianism promises to improve lives and bring dignity in the name of universal humanity through a wide spectrum of approaches, from expert-oriented problem solving to participatory and collaborative initiatives. However, decolonial thinkers who have questioned the universal positioning of the human, argue that the universal human o…
What Is at Stake with Decolonizing Design? A Roundtable
This roundtable was conducted by the eight founding members of Decolonising Design Group in October 2017, using an online messaging platform. Each member approached design and decoloniality from different yet interrelating viewpoints, by threading their individual arguments with the preceding ones. The piece thus offers and travels through a variety of subject matter including politics of design, artificiality, modernity, Eurocentrism, capitalism…
Targeted by Persuasion: Military Uniforms and the Legal Matter of Killing in War
In this paper, we argue that the legitimation of killing in war is not simply formed by adherence to certain legal requirements that exist apart from and prior to war; instead, we suggest, the law of armed conflict in itself cannot but operate through admitting certain materials onto the battlefield as distinctively legal materials. Using the theory of legal materiality, we show that the military uniform is a legal material that makes the legal m…
Violent Compassions: Humanitarian Design and the Politics of Borders
Based on a critical analysis of the two notions of “crisis” and “compassion,” this article outlines and problematizes the increasing engagement of design practices with refugees and vulnerable communities on the move. By contextualizing different historical and contemporary humanitarian design examples in an analysis of current European border politics, the article questions the ways in which designing in the aftermath of the so-called “refugee c…
Seeing Like a Smuggler: Borders from Below
Smuggling as a Material Critique of Borders
By drawing on ethnographic and historical accounts of migrant smuggling and forgery from the smugglers’ perspectives, this essay shifts the focus from a state-centric understanding of smuggling as a criminal activity conducted by ‘greedy’ individuals and ‘mafia rings’, to a specific form of practice that operates through a series of concrete material techniques. It argues that smuggling recognises and reworks the material and technological featur…
The obscured racialisation of humanitarian design: Imagined problem, imagined participation and imagined human
Humanitarian design as a technological and aesthetic endeavour that has become part and parcel of contemporary humanitarianism promises to improve lives and bring dignity in the name of universal humanity through a wide spectrum of approaches, from expert-oriented problem solving to participatory and collaborative initiatives. However, decolonial thinkers who have questioned the universal positioning of the human, argue that the universal human o…
Mobilizing Documents: Identification, Bureaucracy, and Policing in Transnational Mobility
This co‐authored essay builds on a growing anthropological literature that engages critically and creatively with idealized official and popular ideas about documents of/in migration regimes. Documents are often championed as a common and unquestionable good in transnational migration but they are intrinsically tied to inequalities and exclusions. As such they can be the source of hope for migrants, but are frequently also the source of violence,…
Political science (4 works) · Law (3 works) · Political economy (3 works) · Sociology (3 works) · Aesthetics (2 works) · Art (2 works) · Computer Science (2 works) · Ethnography (2 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (2 works) · Politics (2 works)