ABSTRACT
In this introspective piece, I investigate my transnationality through the encounters and disparities that I witness in Oslo and Tehran, while COVID-19 restrictions in both settings reveal some unseemly attitudes on health, nationalism, immigration, and race circulating in public discourse. Through WhatsApp conversations with my Iranian relative, I weave together multiple vignettes centered on cultivating sisterhood, stillness, and presence, as the potentially deadly virus upends people’s lives across the globe in 2020. At the same time, this narrative annotates the real human consequences to the ongoing political wrangling between the United States and Iran, looking at its adverse impact on dual nationals and the Iranian economy.
