Rethinking Collaboration: Medical Research and Working Relationships at the Iranian Pasteur Institute

Abstract

The Pasteur Institute of Iran underwent a major expansion of its research productivity and international recognition during some of the most significant events of modern Iranian history: the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, followed by the Anglo-American coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. During this period, the institute’s French director, Marcel Baltazard, was embedded in a complex set of working relationships with his Iranian employees, research subjects, and government ministers; American scientists and foreign aid workers; and French Pasteurians and diplomats. Baltazard constantly described these relationships as instances of “collaboration.” The temporal and geographical context demands a critical reading of scientific collaboration alongside the negative implications of political collaboration. Investigating the political commitments and social attitudes of the French director and Iranian staff, this essay demonstrates that scientific collaboration at the institute both reinforced socioeconomic inequalities within Iran and mirrored global Cold War geopolitics that undermined Iranian sovereignty.