ABSTRACT
How does one write about a problem among a people halfway around the world, when the world is sharply divided into camps of opposites where the political atmosphere is highly polarized and the military rhetoric of “belonging to one or the other” seems infi nite? 1 “Imagined” or not (Anderson 1991 ), national identities and community affi liations run deep in the current discourses about all that relates to life in Iran. As I write the fi nal addendums to this article on human traffi cking in Iran, I am surrounded by the language of nationalism and political signifi cance, both in terms of the energy confrontations in the world, and at a historically signifi cant moment when the political events of the last few months in Iran lead to the emergence of a Green Movement across the globe in response to the violent aftermath of the Presidential election in June 2009. As such, the current discussions of human rights violations, energy (nuclear) politics, and post-Obama United States-Iran relations, once again raised public awareness about the tenuous relationship between the State and ordinary people of Iran, on the one hand, and the fragile political relations with the country. How does one formulate a thoughtful script about human traffi cking practices and attitudes toward sexuality in Iran, avoiding the ambush of a language of anti-nationalism?
