Dr. Arjang Omrani

I am an anthropologist and currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the University of Ghent, Belgium. My research project, “Weaving Memories,” critically examines the systematic marginalization and exploitation of weavers within the production and trade of handmade carpets, particularly focusing on the Persian carpets. In my role as an associate researcher at the Research Training Group, working in tandem with Dr. Simone Pfeifer, we specifically emphasize the curatorial dimension of the project, employing a critical and multimodal approach to knowledge production and dissemination. 

My academic focus revolves around inclusive and decolonizing methods of producing and disseminating critical knowledge. This dedication has driven my engagement with audio-visual, sensorial, and performative narrative forms and strategies of storytelling. I have been exploring creative forms of more-than-textual and non-fiction modes of mediating knowledge, such as storytelling in films and other multimedia formats.

These focus points have been, both as theoretical and practical endeavors, elaborated in my Ph.D. dissertation titled: “Mediating anthropological knowledge: explorations into shared anthropology”. Expanding on the principles of “Shared Anthropology”, as an “attitude” rather than a method of fieldwork, I understand anthropological work as collaborative, and political, with the aspiration of “critical public pedagogy” which is practiced, materialized and shaped through multimodal engagement and mediation. 

Academic Bibliography