Investigations of the impact of sanctions in the Middle East mostly examine their logistical and economic ramifications (Esfandiary and Fitzpatrick, 2011; Katzman, 2015; Van de Graaf, 2013). Studies have also highlighted the individual experiences of marginalized groups, such as women and cancer patients, as well as the overall effect of sanctions on the quality of people’s lives (Al-Ali, 2005; Hakimian, 2019; Shahabi, 2015). In this paper, we explore the impact of sanctions on the everyday lives of Iranians as well as the creative forms of resistance that they have employed from the ground-up. Aside from journalistic accounts, there has been little empirically driven research on this topic. What challenges have sanctions created for non-elites during everyday life? How are doctors, patients, publishers, business owners, single mothers, and the youth responding to the effect of sanctions? What strategies are used at different levels of society for survival? Who is seen as the enemy? How do people continue to entertain and enjoy life during this new phase of sanctions? Literature on sanctions and the international system explore its effectiveness for governance (Fatas, Melendez-Jimenez, Solaz, 2019; Giumelli, 2016; Mararike, 2019). This paper connects the Iranian people’s creativity in responding to the effects of sanctions during everyday life to new imaginings of the international system, and other processes that unfold at the international level. How are notions of national and international solidarity evolving in this context? How do memories of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war influence people’s thinking regarding the current situation? How do the Iranian people see themselves as international actors? How influential is the state in engendering people’s survival strategies? What lessons does the Iranian experience hold for other nations enduring economic sanctions? This study is grounded in fieldwork and extensive interviews carried out in Tehran in 2020. The different populations impacted most intensely by the sanctions were interviewed. We also use archival research to understand how sanctions are contextualized and discussed by the Iranian people. This paper is part of a larger book project on the remaking of international hierarchies in the Middle East.