Exciting Growth in the Field of Iranian Diaspora Studies

If there was ever any doubt, the AIS 2024 Conference in Mexico City made clear that the field of Iranian Diaspora Studies is significantly growing, both in scope and scale. During the conference at the beautiful Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM), we had the pleasure of welcoming many junior scholars and scholars of Iranian Diaspora Studies to AIS for the first time as participants in the four pre-organized panels, author-meets-critic book roundtable, documentary-film screening, and a dozen individual papers across other panels in our subfield. Among these sessions, over 50% of the participants were new members attending their first AIS conference. We were also pleased to see established AIS members thinking about, researching, and presenting reflections on the diaspora, some for the first time. Of particular note, scholars presented in several new areas of research, including especially the experiences and roles of the diaspora during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” (WLF) movement. We were pleased to see a strong attendance at these panels and extensive engagement in Q/A by AIS members working in diverse fields, topics, and periods.