IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecanth/v9y2022i1p60-71.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Banking the Bazl: Building a future in a sanctioned economy

Author

Listed:
  • Ehsan Lor Afshar

Abstract

In Iran, economic sanctions have adversely impacted the country's money and banking system. The sanctions have caused hyperinflation, economic contraction, and devaluation of the currency. In response, the residents of Iran have developed a variety of coping strategies to ease the miseries of life. This article draws on fieldwork undertaken in Jiroft, a city in southeast Iran, between January and July 2019 to explore how, as Iranian banks struggle under economic sanctions, an old association of financial mutuality called Bazl has been revived in the area. In the reinvented Bazl system, people, frustrated with the banks, form Bazl groups to transfer their cash to each other as gifts with the expectation of reciprocation in the future. The amount of cash circulated through the Bazl system is estimated at 1,500 billion Iranian rials (US$140 million) annually. Under the current circumstance, choosing Bazl over banks as a means of storing value for the future appears to be a rational choice.

Suggested Citation

  • Ehsan Lor Afshar, 2022. "Banking the Bazl: Building a future in a sanctioned economy," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 60-71, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:9:y:2022:i:1:p:60-71
    DOI: 10.1002/sea2.12232
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12232
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sea2.12232?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hull, Elizabeth & James, Deborah, 2012. "Introduction: popular economies in South Africa," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 42043, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Bohannan, Paul, 1959. "The Impact of Money on an African Subsistence Economy," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(4), pages 491-503, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ståle Wig, 2024. "Infrabanking: Mobilizing capital in communist Cuba," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 59-70, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert M. Rosenswig, 2024. "Understanding money; Or, why social and financial accounting should not be conflated," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 71-86, January.
    2. Cieslik, Katarzyna, 2016. "Moral Economy Meets Social Enterprise Community-Based Green Energy Project in Rural Burundi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 12-26.
    3. Hull, Elizabeth, 2014. "The Social Dynamics of Labor Shortage in South African Small-Scale Agriculture," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 451-460.
    4. Ermolin, Ilya (Ермолин, Илья), 2015. "Communal Self-Regulation of “Informal” Economy: Evidences from Northern Dagestan in Russia [Процессы Коммунального Саморегулирования «Неформальной» Экономики]," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 159-176, February.
    5. Keith Hart, 2012. "Money in Twentieth-century Anthropology," Chapters, in: James G. Carrier (ed.), A Handbook of Economic Anthropology, Second Edition, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Jérôme Blanc, 2017. "Unpacking monetary complementarity and competition: a conceptual framework," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 41(1), pages 239-257.
    7. Melitz, Jacques, 1970. "The Polanyi School of Anthropology on Money: An Economist's View," MPRA Paper 84893, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 1970.
    8. Albert Schrauwers, 2022. "Banknotes, bookkeeping barter, and cloth money: Conversions of “special‐purpose money” in the cloth and dammar trade of Sulawesi, Indonesia, 1860–1905," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 8-21, January.
    9. Adeline Nnenna Idike & Ikechukwu Ogeze Ukeje & Udu Ogbulu & Johnson Ngwuta Aloh & Victoria Ugochi Obasi & Kelechi Nwachukwu & Kenneth Osuebi & Ernest N. Ejem, 2021. "The Practice of Human Capital Development Process and Poverty Reduction: Consequences for Sustainable Development Goals in Ebonyi State, Nigeria," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 263-280, June.
    10. Martin Tremčinský, 2022. "Bitcoin and its spheres of consumption: Transactional orders of consuming money in the Czech and Slovak Bitcoin community," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 35-46, January.
    11. Chan, May & Kemp, Simon & Finsterwalder, Jörg, 2016. "The concept of near money in loyalty programmes," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 246-255.
    12. Jacqueline S. Solway, 1994. "Drought as a Revelatory Crisis: An Exploration of Shifting Entitlements and Hierarchies in the Kalahari, Botswana," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 25(3), pages 471-495, July.
    13. Matteo Aria & Nicolò Bellanca, 2012. "The Polytheistic Condition: Incomparable Assets and Special Currency," Working Papers - Economics wp2012_20.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    14. Tristan Dissaux, 2023. "Geographies of Monetary Exclusion in Kenyan Slums: Financial Inclusion in Question," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 54(1), pages 87-116, January.
    15. Théo Bourgeron, 2018. "Optimising ‘cash flows’: converting corporate finance to hard currency," Post-Print hal-03165942, HAL.
    16. Hadrien Saiag, 2014. "Towards a neo-Polanyian approach to money: integrating the concept of debt," Post-Print halshs-02343433, HAL.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:9:y:2022:i:1:p:60-71. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=2330-4847 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.