Samar Saremi is an architect who graduated from McGill University and is now a PhD candidate in anthropology at the Université de Montréal. She is currently a member of the French-Canadian Association of Sociologists and Anthropologists (ACSALF) as well as a partner at Tajeer Consulting Architects in Tehran, Iran. Her Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council-funded doctoral thesis, titled “Healing in Mashhad: Imam Reza Shrine pathologized in Iran (1883 to 1941),” focuses on the role of sanitary concerns in shaping the modern city of Mashhad. The aim is to provide an alternative urban history of the shrine city based on matters of health and healing in the production of spaces at the dawn of 20th century Iran. Samar’s areas of interest include power, space, urbanism and architecture, urban studies and development, spatial governmentality, sacred space, political anthropology, the anthropology of state, critical and engaged anthropology, the anthropology of development, the Middle East, Islam, and Shi’ism.
