Tara Mehrabi
Research
I am an interdisciplinary researcher with my background in sociology of science and technologies, sociology of health and illness, as well as gender studies. I am interested in exploring the intersection between bodies, environment, health, illness, technology, life and death.
I have previously studied IVF technologies in Iran and normalization and naturalization of the technologies within the Iranian context in relation to gender, class, and religion. For my PhD studies, I did a laboratory ethnography to study knowledge production practices in Alzheimer鈥檚 sciences. My dissertation is about how death (as in neural death, animal models sacrifice, and corpse) is made in the lab and becomes meaningful in the every-day practices of making knowledge about AD鈥檚 biochemistry and protein interactions. My dissertation, Making Death Matter (206), also discusses ethical and political questions such as which bodies become killable within the economy of AD sciences and how these killable bodies are produced, used, and disposed of. What kind of political and ethical question such deaths, dying and dead bodies raise for feminist technoscience studies, posthumanities, and critical studies of death. 听
My postdoctoral research was funded by the Localizing Feminist New Materialism project (Turku University). I did two small-scale studies during my postdoc. My first two articles are continuations of my PhD research and are connected to my collaboration with the Queer Death Studies Network. First article, Being Intimate with the Flies, explores the embodied and affective bodily responses that generates uncomfortable feelings such as disgust as a method for feminist STS knowledge production. Second article, localizes the question of material agency, life/death, and nature through discussing the performativity of dead matter, dying bodies and death itself in the context of waste management in the laboratory. My last publication in the project is a forthcoming chapter on allergies, transcorporeality and intersectionality that is to be published as part of a book volume on intersectionality and FNM.听
Currently, I am involved in the research platform Digital Well Arena by Compare and funded by Vinnova. The project I am involved with is to study accessibility and inclusiveness within the context of digitalization of healthcare in Sweden. We are currently doing the pilot studies, that is to conduct interviews with 2 focus groups, one consist of cis-gender women with an immigration background, and the other is interviews with transgender and nonbinary individuals.
Teaching
My teaching covers different areas of the gender studies courses offered by CGF. I teach the introductory module in gender studies, feminist theories and methodologies, introduction to feminist technoscience studies, and gender, health and technologies among other topics.
Collaboration
I am the co-founder of the Queer Death Studies Network (QDSN) (with Dr. Annika Jonsson, Dr. Marietta Radomska and Prof. Nina Lykke). 听I am also the co-chairperson of GEXcel International Collegium research strand 鈥淒eath Studies: Queerfeminist Materialist Perspectives鈥 (see ), and an affiliated member of the (KTH, SE).
Selected publications
Monographs
Mehrabi, T. (2016). Making Death Matter: A Feminist Technoscience Study of Alzheimer鈥檚 Sciences in the Laboratory [PhD dissertation]. Link枚ping: Link枚ping University Electronic Press.
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Articles
Mehrabi T. (2020). 鈥淨ueer Ecologies of Death in the Lab: rethinking waste, decomposition and death through a feminist queer lens鈥, special Issue Queer Death Studies: Death, Dying and Mourning in a Queerfeminist Context. (eds.) Marietta Radomska, Tara Mehrabi and Nina Lykke in the Australian Feminist Studies Journal, 35(104): 138-154
Tiainen M., Lepp盲nen, T., Kontturi, K., Mehrabi, T. (2020). 鈥滿aking Middles Matter: Intersecting Intersectionality with New Materialisms鈥, NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 28(3): 211-223
Mehrabi, T. (2020). "Almanac: Affective method."听Matter: Journal of New Materialist Research听1, no. 2: 154-157.
Radomska, M., Mehrabi, T., Lykke, N. (2020). 鈥漄ueer Death Studies: Death, Dying and Mourning from a Queerfeminist Perspective鈥,听Australian Feminist Studies,听35(104): 81-100
Radomska M., Mehrabi, T., Lykke, N. (2019). 鈥漄ueer Death Studies: Coming to Terms with Death, Dying and Mourning Differently鈥, an Introduction to the Special Issue 鈥淨ueer Death Studies: Coming to terms with death, dying and mourning differently, Women, Gender and Research, 28 (3-4):3-11
Mehrabi, T. (2018). "Being intimate with flies: on affective methodologies and laboratory work."听Kvinder, K酶n & Forskning,听1: 73-80.
Special Issues
Radomska, M., Mehrabi, T., Nina Lykke, (eds.), 2019.Special Issue 鈥淨ueer Death Studies: Coming to terms with death, dying and mourning differently鈥, Women, Gender and Research, 28 (3-4): 1-126
Radomska, M., Mehrabi, T., Lykke, N. (eds.), 2020. Special Issue 鈥淨ueer Death Studies: Death, Dying and Mourning in a Queerfeminist Context鈥, The Australian Feminist Studies Journal, 35(104): 81-201
Mehrabi, T. and Tainio, L. (eds.). Forthcoming. Special issue 鈥淕ender and Sexual Politics of the COVID-19 Pandemic鈥 in the European Journal of Women鈥檚 Studies.
A. Henriksson,听K.听Kuurne, T. Mehrabi (eds.). Forthcoming. Special Issue 鈥淚ntimacy Beyond the Familiar鈥 in the journal Culture Unbound.
Peer-reviewed book chapters
Mehrabi T., and C. 脜sberg, (2017). 鈥淢odel Territories: Choreographies of Laboratory Flies鈥, in Animal Places. Lively Cartographies of Human Animal Relations. (eds.) Bull, J., Holmberg, T., 脜sberg, C. Routledge: London.
Mehrabi, T. (2017). 鈥淎lzheimer鈥檚 in the making: A feminist laboratory study of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease鈥, in Gendering Drugs. (ed.) Johnson, E. Palgrave: London
听脜sberg C. and Mehrabi, T. (2016). 鈥淣ature in the lab鈥 in Gender: Nature (MacMillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks) edited by Iris Van der Tuin. Schirmer Books,U.S.
听Mehrabi, T., 2016. Matters of Donation and Preserved Relations: Co-Construction of Egg Donation and Family Structures in Iran. In Assisted Reproduction Across Borders Subtitle: Feminist Perspectives on Normalizations, Disruptions and Transmissions. (eds.) Merete Lie and Nina Lykke. Routledge
听Position papers
听Hinton, P., Mehrabi, and Barla. "New materialisms/New colonialisms."听Unpublished manuscript, 脜bo Akademi University, Finland听(2015).
Publications
- Tara Mehrabi, Martin Hultman, Signe Uldbjerg, Liu Xin, 2024
- Tara Mehrabi, Wibke Straube, 2024
- Victoria Kawesa, Ina Knobblock, Maria Vlachou, Redi Koobak, Tara Mehrabi, Madina Tlostanova, Nina Lykke, 2023
- Victoria Kawesa, Ina Knobblock, Maria Vlachou, Redi Koobak, Tara Mehrabi, Madina Tlostanova, Nina Lykke, 2023
- Tara Mehrabi, Luca Tainio, 2022
- Tara Mehrabi, 2022
- Tara Mehrabi, 2020
- Milla Tiainen, Taru Lepp盲nen, Katve-Kaisa Kontturi, Tara Mehrabi, 2020
- Marietta Radomska, Tara Mehrabi, Nina Lykke, 2020
- Marietta Radomska, Tara Mehrabi, Nina Lykke, 2019
- Tara Mehrabi, 2018
- Tara Mehrabi, 2017
- Cecilia 脜sberg, Tara Mehrabi, 2017
- Tara Mehrabi, 2016
- Tara Mehrabi, 2016
- Cecilia 脜sberg, Tara Mehrabi, 2016
- Tara Mehrabi, 2000