Banking the Bazl: Building a future in a sanctioned economy

Ehsan Lor Afshar

Economic Anthropology, 2022, vol. 9, issue 1, 60-71

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.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12232

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:9:y:2022:i:1:p:60-71

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=2330-4847

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic Anthropology from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().