Shafiee, Katayoun (2012) A petro-formula and its world : calculating profits, labour and production in the assembling of Anglo-Iranian oil. Economy and Society, 41 (4). pp. 585-614. doi:10.1080/03085147.2011.628458

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Abstract

The paper explores how the calculative work of three different formulas shaped the history of oil in Iran in the first half of the twentieth century. British investors, Iranian government officials, oil workers and other actors battled over the construction and employment of a formula during the course of three different but interconnected disputes over oil profits, labour and production rates. Opening up the dynamics of a petroleum formula exposes how, on each occasion, certain political possibilities were opened or closed in the co-assembling of the Iranian state and Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Scholarship on oil and Iran has not been able to account for the kinds of non-human actors, tools and machinery involved in the building of such a large-scale political project as an oil industry. Thus the paper draws on the current research on formulas and markets in science and technology studies but takes a different direction by looking at their political construction in the resolution of not just financial and economic problems, but social and political ones.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts > History
Journal or Publication Title:	Economy and Society
Publisher:	Routledge
ISSN:	0308-5147
Official Date:	2012
Dates:	Date Event 2012 Published
Volume:	41
Number:	4
Page Range:	pp. 585-614
DOI:	10.1080/03085147.2011.628458
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access

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