Iranian Journal Of Antheropology

Iranian Journal Of Antheropology

The Agency of Objects in the Reproduction of Meaning in the Iran–Iraq War: A Posthumanist Reading of the War Machine

Document Type : Research Paper

Author
Hamed Taheri Kia
Assistant Professor. Institute for Social and Cultural Studies.
10.22034/jasi.2026.733665
Abstract
This article examines the agency of objects in the reproduction of meaning and the lived endurance of the Iran–Iraq War through a posthumanist lens. The central research question asks how nonhuman forces—including weapons, clothing, photographs, and everyday artifacts—participate within a network of human and nonhuman interactions to shape lived experience, collective memory, and the symbolic order of the war. The theoretical framework draws on the work of Brian Massumi, Erin Manning, and Deleuze and Guattari, who conceptualize life as an entangled field of forces and release agency from an exclusively human domain. Methodologically, the study employs a qualitative approach based on rhizomatic analysis of data gathered from interviews, field notes, photographs, and war memoirs. The findings suggest that the Iran–Iraq War machine operated not merely as a military apparatus but as a dynamic assemblage of bodies, objects, and techniques through which meaning, memory, and everyday life were continually reproduced. Objects within this assemblage did not function simply as tools; rather, they emerged as active agents that, in their interactions with bodies and spatial environments, generated new cultural and affective significations. The study concludes that conceptualizing war as a posthuman war machine enables a rethinking and redefinition of the relationship between humans, materiality, technique, and meaning.
Keywords
agency
objects
war
posthumanism
Subjects
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Iranian Journal Of Antheropology
Volume 21, Issue 39
January 2025
Pages 261-287