Maral Sotoudehnia - PhD Student
I am a PhD Candidate in the University of Victoria’s Department of Geography. My research investigates the cultural politics and commodification of space shaped by global, smart and sustainable policies. Equally influencing my scholarship are contemporary approaches to critical data studies and feminist political economy that foreground questions surrounding access, citizenship, embodiment, financial exclusion, and social justice in relation to various urban decision-making processes. My doctoral dissertation recounts an ethnography of blockchains and cryptocurrencies (e.g., Bitcoin), and how peer-to-peer systems generate distributed but inchoate, or rambunctious, instances of capitalism.
List of Publications
Peer-reviewed Articles
Sotoudehnia, M., Rose-Redwood, R. 2019. “I am Burj Khalifa”: Entrepreneurial Urbanism, Toponymic Commodification, and the Worlding of Dubai. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 43(6): 1014-1027.
Rose-Redwood, R., Sotoudehnia, M., Tretter, E. 2019. “Turn Your Brand into a Destination": Toponymic Commodification and the Branding of Place in Dubai and Winnipeg. Urban Geography 40(6): 846-869.
Owens, C., Sotoudehnia, M., Erickson-McGee, P. 2015. Reflections on Teaching and Learning for Sustainability from the Cascadia Sustainability Field School. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 39(3): 313-327.
Book Chapters
Owens, C., Sotoudehnia, M. 2018. Assessing the Value of the Journey: Field Study, Learning Outcomes, and Improvisational Pedagogies. In D. Curran, C. Owens, and H. Thorson (eds.), Out There Learning: Critical Reflections on Off-Campus Study Programs. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Sotoudehnia, M. 2017. An Uncomfortable Position: Making Sense of Field Encounters Through Intimate Reflections. In P. Moss and C. Donovan (eds.), Writing Intimacy into Feminist Geography (pp. 33-41). Abingdon: Routledge.
Sotoudehnia, M. 2017. Checksum Urbanism or Toponymic Flotsam? Recalculating Dubai’s Grid with Makani, “the Smartest Map in the World.” In R. Rose-Redwood, D. Alderman, and M. Azaryahu (eds.), The Political Life of Urban Streetscapes: Naming, Politics, and Place (pp. 209-308). Abingdon: Routledge.
Book Reviews
Sotoudehnia, M. 2017. Smith, B. Market Orientalism: Cultural Economy and the Arab Gulf States. Syracuse University Press. The Canadian Geographer, 61(1): e1-e2.
Sotoudehnia, M. 2016. Ayoama, Y., Hanson, S., & James T. Murphy (eds.), Key Concepts in Economic Geography. SAGE. The Canadian Geographer, 60(1): e12-e13.
Sotoudehnia, M. 2014. Le Bel, P.-M. Montréal et la Métropolisation: Une Géographie Romanesque. Les Éditions Triptyque. The Canadian Geographer, 58(4): 65.
Articles in Review
Sotoudehnia, M., Rose-Redwood, R. Rethinking the Fictions of Capital: A Performative Reappraisal. Revise and Resubmit, Progress in Human Geography.
Sotoudehnia, M. Sticky, Waddling: An Autobiography of Pregnant Embodiment in Toronto, Ontario’s Crypto-Economy. Submitted to GeoHumanities.
Articles and Special Issues in Preparation
Sotoudehnia, M. Forks in Time: Intimate Reflections on the Algorhythmic Governance of Contentious Blockchain Hard Forks. In preparation for Geoforum.
Sotoudehnia, M. The “Rambunctious” Capital of Cryptocurrencies. In preparation for Antipode.
Sotoudehnia, M. To the Moon or Rekt? Bitcoin, Naming, and the Distributed Politics of Misdirection. In preparation for the Annals of the American Association of Geographers.
Humayun, M., Sotoudehnia, M. Finding Space on Bitcoin’s Moonbase: A Collective Biography of Techbro-Solutionism. In preparation for Journal of Consumer Research.
Swanlund, D., Sotoudehnia, M. (guest eds). Special issue proposal on the digital geographies of blockchains. In preparation for the Canadian Geographer.