Kolbari in Kurdish areas, fuel carriers in Balochistan and other forms of informal and risky employment in other border areas, including Azerbaijan, are part of the economic reality of regions that have faced structural poverty, a lack of sustainable job opportunities and deprivation of development opportunities for years. In these regions, a significant part of […]...

Let’s say a resident of Marivan applies for a border trade quota. He has submitted his residency documents, but the answer is simply: Your conditions were not met. He does not know which document was incomplete, whether the quota capacity was filled or other people had priority. More importantly, he does not know where to […]...

Kolbari and fuel bartering cannot be analyzed within the classical framework of informal trade practices; this phenomenon is, first and foremost, a survival strategy in the context of structural poverty, chronic unemployment, and regional discrimination. It was in this context that the “Law on the Organization and Supervision of Border Trade (Kolbari and Melvani) and […]...

A failed state is a state that is unable to perform its functions as a state. Such a state is incapable of establishing social order, monopolizing the use of violence, meeting the basic needs of the people of the society, establishing security and the rule of law, and some of its functions are performed by […]...

The adoption of the Law on the Organisation and Supervision of Border Trade (Kulbari and Maritime Trade) and the Creation of Sustainable Employment for Border Residents in 2024 can be understood as a form of official acknowledgement by the Islamic Republic that kulbari, the practice of carrying goods across borders, cannot be viewed solely through […]...

The phenomenon of kolbari has become one of the most painful manifestations of the informal economy in the western and northwestern borders of Iran in recent decades. Kolbari is mainly prevalent in the provinces of West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Kermanshah and Ilam. Field estimates show that about 70 thousand people are kolbari in the provinces of […]...

In recent years, the Islamic Republic has taken major steps in using new technologies for social surveillance and control. This trend, rooted in global developments and what the government regards as domestic needs, has been pursued at different speeds during different periods, but what has turned it into a prominent issue is the increasing acceleration […]...

War does not only destroy cities. Crisis does not only unravel political or economic order. Perhaps the deepest effect of crisis lies where it is less visible: the moment when a person realizes that they can no longer preserve everything that is valuable to them at the same time. In ordinary life, many moral choices […]...

While traditional models of mass tourism are largely based on consumerism, a particular approach to volunteer tourism has expanded in recent decades, founded on non-monetary exchange. Under this structured approach, rather than acting as a passive consumer and paying for accommodation and food, the tourist contributes part of their time, expertise, and physical or intellectual […]...

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The world has once again become accustomed to war. Images of destruction, displacement and death flash before our eyes every day; so much so that we sometimes forget that behind every image, there was a human being. However, not all victims are seen equally. For some deaths, official ceremonies are held, the media writes about […]...

Before the recent war between Iran on one side and Israel and the United States on the other, the term “dual-use infrastructure” was mainly used in the specialized literature of the law of armed conflict and strategic studies. But with the expansion of the scope of military operations and attacks on facilities that appear civilian […]...