Arzoo Osanloo (PhD 2002, Stanford; JD 1993, American)

Research Interests:
Human rights, law, gender and Islam, refugee and asylum, liberalism, sovereignty, mercy/forgiveness and social accountability

"I hold a joint appointment in Anthropology and the Law, Societies and Justice Program, so my research interests reflect anthropological inquiries into the realm of law, governance and the state. I am currently working on a book project that focuses on women's everyday discourses of rights in Iran's Islamic Republic, a unique, if not contradictory, combination of religious state and a republic. The primary aim of this research is to examine the social, political, and legal conditions that mediate urban middle-class women's conceptions rights. I am further interested in human rights as a discourse of social accountability in the current geopolitical era and am beginning research on a new project that examines the relationship between human rights, mercy and state power. Before venturing into Anthropology, I was a lawyer and practiced asylum and immigration law in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. My work in human rights law sparked an interest in the interplay between international and national legal systems and their effects on people at local levels."